Widows need our help

[Susie]

Hi

I have spoken with Brent Renison this afternoon who is an immigration attorney giving his time freely wishing to redress the fact the many spouses of USC are immeaditaley illegal should their USC spouse pass away.

He is very interested in our site and will be speaking to him again later today to invite him to join our efforts. In the meantime please see below.

It is very refreshing that an attorney cares and is doing so much to help others freely







Dear susan,

I am Brent Renison, an attorney who has volunteered time to end an unjust practice - the widow penalty. With this letter, I ask that you help end the widow penalty by sending a letter to your Congressperson and Senators and then forward this email to family and friends. In less than two minutes, you can help end a great deal of suffering.


The widow penalty is a little known crack in the law that denies the spouses of American citizens permanent resident status when the citizen spouse dies before the agency can get to the application. Hundreds of widows and widowers of American citizens who entered this country legally and waited patiently for the bureaucracy to act are now being told to leave, even if they have US citizen children.

Write your representatives at: http://www.immigrantslist.org/widowpenalty

On Mother's Day 2006, Marlin Coats died while trying to save two drowning teens caught in a riptide at San Francisco Beach Park. He lost his life, but those two teenagers survived. The U.S. is now responding to Coats' ultimate sacrifice by deporting his wife Jacqueline Coats because of the widow penalty.

She is not alone - widows of U.S. contractors killed in Iraq, Border Patrol Officers, victims of drunk drivers, and more. One widow with a three month old child of the marriage was told that she must go, but her son could stay!

If the bureaucracy fails to act before the untimely death, says USCIS, denial is automatic and there is no appeal regardless of the circumstances. It is time for us to end this unjust practice!

This crack in the law is surprisingly easy to fix - with just a few words Congress can abolish the widow penalty forever! These widows and widowers are such a small group of people, however, that their voice is drowned out. That's why they need our support.

Support them now by going to: http://www.immigrantslist.org/widowpenalty

Please lend a helping hand to a surviving spouse by letting your voice be heard in Congress on their behalf! Then, forward this to just one friend in a personal email and ask that they do the same.



Thank You,

Brent Renison

[Susie]

also see





FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 7, 2008
Contact: Brent Renison
Phone: +1 (503) 597-7190
Fax: +1 (503) 726-0730
Email: brent@entrylaw.com
Florida War Widow Wins Residency, Others Left Behind
CASSELBERRY, FL – A Central Florida war widow who was facing deportation after her
American husband was killed in Iraq was granted permanent residency despite a United States
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) earlier ruling.
Immigration officials notified Dahianna Heard and her attorney today that her legal resident
status, denied previously due to her husband’s death, has now been approved. Mrs. Heard had
entered the country legally from Venezuela and married her American husband, Jeffrey Heard, a
military veteran in July 2004. The couple filed a residency application in October 2004 and
waited for immigration authorities to act on the application. Meanwhile, Jeffrey worked for a
private security contractor, and was sent to Iraq to help provide supplies to U.S. troops there.
While in Iraq, Dahianna gave birth to the couple’s son, Bryan.
On March 20, 2006, Heard was killed in an ambush outside Falluja. In a letter dated September
27, 2006, Linda Swacina, District Director for USCIS in Orlando, Florida, wrote to Heard’s
grieving widow:
“Reference is made to the visa petition filed on your behalf by Jeffrey Heard
on October 27, 2004. The record reflects that your spouse died on March 20,
2006. In accordance with the death of the petitioner, the petition is hereby
terminated as well as the application for permanent residence. U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration Services (CIS) considers the matter closed. No further action
will be taken on the petition or application. CIS is sorry for your
loss…Because your marriage to Mr. Heard was less than two years old at the
time of his death, you do not qualify as an immediate relative under the law”
The couple was married for one year, eight months, and eleven days when Heard was killed.
Mrs. Heard soon learned she was another victim of the “widow penalty” in U.S. immigration
law. She was told that, had her application been reviewed before her husband’s death, it would
have been approved. Also, if she had been married for two years at the time of his death, she
could file her own “self-petition” for widow status. Because neither of those two things
occurred, she faced automatic denial.
But Heard was not alone. Members of the American Immigration Lawyers Association have
long been urging the USCIS to recognize that its own delay, coupled by an unfortunate death,
should not strip legal status from an applicant who followed all the rules for residency. A nonprofit
advocacy organization, Surviving Spouses Against Deportation (www.ssad.org) was
founded last year to fight what has been coined the “widow penalty.” SSAD has discovered 130
cases of the widow penalty nationwide, in over 30 states representing over 50 nationalities.
A U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision issued in 2006, Freeman v. Gonzales, ruled that
the government was wrong to strip spousal status from a couple who had filed all the necessary
paperwork prior to the death, and where the pair was only awaiting USCIS action. After a
federal Court in New Jersey – in Robinson v. Chertoff – followed the Freeman ruling, a national
class action lawsuit was filed in August 2007 in Los Angeles federal court by Oregon attorney
Brent Renison and Los Angeles attorney Alan Diamante. Mrs. Heard joined the class action as a
plaintiff.
Carla Freeman’s husband, Bob Freeman, was killed in Merrillville, Indiana when a Pepsi truck
crossed the center lane and collided head-on with his vehicle. Osserritta Robinson is the widow
of a citizen killed in the Staten Island Ferry accident. The couples were simply waiting for
USCIS to get to the applications when the tragedies occurred. The New Jersey federal court
ordered that Robinson be treated as a spouse, but USCIS has appealed that decision to the U.S.
Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The lead plaintiff in the class action, filed in Los Angeles
federal court is Carolyn Hootkins, widow of actor Bill Hootkins of Star Wars fame. Others in
the lawsuit include another widow of American contractor killed in Iraq, Diana Engstrom of
Bloomington, Illinois, the widow of a border patrol agent, Ana Maria Moncayo-Gigax of
California, and the widow of a man killed by a drunk driver, Khin Win of Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Office of Immigration Litigation, within the Department of Justice, has opposed the lawsuit,
and filed a motion to dismiss the proceedings on behalf of USCIS. A hearing is set March 3,
2008 to determine the status of the case.
Previously, on November 8, 2007, Mike Aytes, Associate Director of Domestic Operations for
USCIS, issued a memorandum directing field leadership to follow the Freeman ruling only in the
states covered by the Ninth Circuit, and to continue automatic denials for the rest of the country.
Legislative efforts to end the widow penalty have been underway for several years, but the
stalled debate over immigration reform has so far hampered progress. Legislation to end the
widow penalty passed the Senate in 2006 as part of comprehensive immigration reform, but the
House failed to pass it. In 2007, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida introduced an amendment to the
reform bill that would end the widow penalty, but Senators failed to agree on a reform package.
SSAD advocates were shocked this week to hear that on January 28, 2008, the National Defense
Authorization Act, signed into law by President Bush that day, included surviving spouse
benefits to Iraqi translators and other Iraqis who helped the U.S. military effort in Iraq. The new
provision does not include the surviving spouses of American citizens – only those of Iraqi
citizens.
Heard’s application was finally approved under provisions passed in the 2003 National Defense
Authorization Act, which provides for the surviving spouses of active duty military members
killed in combat. Because Heard was killed while working as a contractor, the provision was
initially overlooked. Following Heard’s participation in the class action lawsuit, immigration
officials at USCIS took a closer look, and decided that the two requirements – military service
and death in combat – did not have to occur at the same time.
The approval in Heard’s case does not apply to the other widows’ cases, however, and still
leaves out Diana Engstrom, whose husband Todd Engstrom was killed in Iraq on September 14,
2004, in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on his convoy by insurgents. Todd had previously
served as a Commander in the United Nations Special Operations Group, and met his wife in
Kosovo where she served as a United Nations translator. After their marriage in December
2003, Diana filed for legal residency the following month with the Chicago USCIS office.
Because Todd did not previously serve in the U.S. military, and because he is not an Iraqi
citizen, his wife Diana is left to deal with the cruel effects of the widow penalty. While she is a
plaintiff in the class action lawsuit, her future remains uncertain. Senators Durbin and Obama
introduced private legislation in 2005 to give her permanent resident status, but those efforts
have not yielded results. In fact, passage of private legislation is exceedingly rare.
The last private bill passed into law for a widow of an American citizen was for Anisha Foti,
whose husband Seth Foti died in the crash of Gulf Air 072 on August 23, 2000. Seth was a State
Department diplomatic courier at the time of his death, and had filed for residency for his wife.
Because of support from the State Department Diplomatic Security office, Foti’s private bill was
passed and signed into law by President Bush in 2003. But a private bill only benefits the one
person who is the subject of the bill, so the widow penalty continues to punish all other grieving
widows whose only crime is the death of their spouse.
“It is time to stop this cruel and unjust practice, and recognize that we have a serious flaw in the
law,” SSAD pro bono counsel Brent Renison said.
“We should not be deporting widows of Americans when they have complied with the legal
requirements for residency. No one can prepare for the death of a spouse, especially when
government processing times vary widely and are not within the control of applicants. We
should not punish those who follow the rules. This is America, and we can do better than that.”
SSAD hopes that election year politics do not impede the efforts to pass a law to address the
widow penalty this year, and await a champion to spearhead a bill. Survivors who have been
impacted by the widow penalty continue to huddle in the shadows, stripped of work
authorization and legal status, relying on the kindness of strangers for assistance.
SSAD pro bono counsel Brent Renison can be reached at (503) 597-7190 or (503) 780-2223.
Mrs. Heard’s attorney Ralph Pineda of Orlando, Florida can be reached at (407) 425-7223.
For more information, visit the SSAD website: http://www.ssad.org

[Susie]

I had a very interesting conversation with Brent today and will be talking to him further, hopefully very soon.

Without naming names I did mention to Brent that we have a USC child member who's mother is a widow on an E 2 visa. I brought up the subject of the uncertainty of the E visa renewals given the current economic climate and just how this was of great concern to the child. He was very interested to know that USC children have immigration concerns.

[byjove]

I had the same email from him and emailed back underlining the concerns for visa holders spouses and what happens if the holder should pass away.

[kirtida8]

me too.

[Susie]

Spoke with Brent again this week, please all support him and send letters to your congressmen

[Susie]

SEEMS THERE IS SOME GOOD NEWS!



* Court Issues Final Order in Surviving Spouse Litigation (Updated 5/4/09) (5/4/2009)
Final order issued in a class action challenge to the widow penalty. The District Court found that plaintiffs in the Ninth and Sixth Circuits are entitled to "immediate relative" classification as surviving spouses of deceased U.S. citizens, and it invalidated guidance set forth in a 11/07 Aytes memo. Hootkins v. Chertoff (C.D. CA, 4/28/09).