Via Feministing, this doesn’t sound so much to me like “good news” as it does basic decency:
Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, gave a two-year reprieve on Tuesday to immigrants whose applications for permanent residency have been denied because their American spouses died during the application process.
Under United States law, a foreign spouse of an American citizen is eligible for residency, but the couple is required to be married for at least two years first, in part as a safeguard against fraudulent marriages.
The government has argued that if the American spouse dies before the two-year mark, the foreign spouse becomes a widow or widower, effectively annulling the right to be considered for residency, and thereby opening the door to deportation.
While Ms. Napolitano’s order does not change or abolish the law, as its opponents have sought, it suspends action, including deportation proceedings, in cases involving widows and widowers who reside in the United States and were married for fewer than two years before their spouses died.
I’m really just shocked and appalled that this policy was in place at all. My husband is actually an immigrant who entered the United States under these rules. Just yesterday, in fact, he passed his naturalization exam, and he will be taking his oath of citizenship in a little over a month (congratulations, love!). In fact, I remember on all of the many forms we had to fill out showing evidence of our marriage at various points, there was a statement about producing a death certificate if the sponsoring spouse had died. The way it was worded, we always assumed it was so that they could allow you to stay in the country under an exception despite the fact that you were no longer married to a U.S. citizen, not so that they could more easily kick you out.
Quite obviously I’m still alive, and under the hypothetical misfortune that I wasn’t, I don’t know whether my husband would have wanted to stay here or not. But the idea that he wouldn’t have been given a choice and in fact could have been deported under such circumstances absolutely enrages me. And the fact that so many people actually have been placed in this circumstance and been forced to leave the country, and their life, not to mention in a time of grieving, both repulses me and breaks my heart.
So, good on Napolitano for using her power to put in a suspension. Hell, we can even go ahead and cross our fingers really, really tight that this might bode well for the countless other immigration injustices we’re currently dealing with.
But the advocates quoted in the above article are right that this is a band aid. Real change is going to have to happen legislatively. So I hope that you’ll take a moment to contact Congress. Also, check out Surviving Spouses Against Deportation for more information.