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A Loss Of Love And Country

November 23, 2008 4:00 PM

Foreigners who marry Americans are entitled to become permanent residents of the U.S., but in a stricter post-9/11 world, hundreds of widows are being asked to leave the country because their husbands died. Bob Simon reports.

Immigrant Widows Left In Limbo
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by us_army_wife November 26, 2008 9:41 AM EST
This is something not new to me. As an immigrant spouse of a US Citizen, the USCIS has given me a tough time as well. Not as tough as other spouses go through but still, tough. My husband is an active duty soldier of the US Army. When we learned about his tour in Europe, I made my own reasearch in the USCIS website about any possible expedited process of naturalization. Indeed, I saw one! After months of waiting ad being in a run around and begging so many people inside the USCIS and DHS, they finally gave me what I am entitled to. The information below may help.

EXPEDITIOUS NATURALIZATION FOR DEPENDENT SPOUSES (INA '319(b); 8 U.S.C. 1430(b); 8 C.F.R. ' 319.2; DOD DIR 5500.14) A spouse married to a United States citizen, whether military or civilian, who is assigned overseas by the United States government, may qualify for expeditious processing of an application for naturalization. Lawful permanent resident (LPR) status is still required; but all residency and physical presence requirements are waived. The overseas assignment must be one year or more after taking the oath of naturalization. Marital unity is still a requirement. Along with filing Form N-400, the spouse should obtain a completed Form DD 1278, "Certificate of Overseas Assignment to Support Application to File for Petition for Naturalization" from the member''s command. The expeditious naturalization option for spouses is not available once the overseas tour is over.
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by c_taylor70 November 25, 2008 7:09 PM EST
It''s no wonder this country is in dire straits. The same government that is spending our tax dollars pursuing deportation of immigrants who have gone through the proper channels to become productive citizens of this country is also considering granting amnesty to the millions who have entered this country illegally and continue to bleed the social programs dry. To take such action against the wife of a soldier who gave his life for this country is the ultimate slap in the face to his family and a disgrace to this country!
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by rudyarias November 25, 2008 5:41 PM EST
I''m dismayed that the INS will pursue the deportation of a widow than that of fraudulent marriages. My furture ex-wife is one whose first marriage to an South American was outright fraudulent. They divorced less than a 1 1/2 year of marriage. He managed to get his permanent residency within that period and divorced shortly after. Their divorce records clearly show that they did not even live together as a married couple. So much for the INS following up on married couples.

Again, so much money and energy wasted on widows/widowers who obviously already have children from the marriage and good relations with their deceased spouses'' families.
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by rudyarias November 25, 2008 5:40 PM EST
I''m dismayed that the INS will pursue the deportation of a widow than that of fraudulent marriages. My furture ex-wife is one whose first marriage to an South American was outright fraudulent. They divorced less than a 1 1/2 year of marriage. He managed to get his permanent residency within that period and divorced shortly after. Their divorce records clearly show that they did not even live together as a married couple. So much for the INS following up on married couples.

Again, so much money and energy wasted on widows/widowers who obviously already have children from the marriage and good relations with their deceased spouses'' families.
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by armysgt2 November 25, 2008 3:02 PM EST
Mr. Simmon
I saw this report and it makes me sick. I have been battling with the immigration process now for 5 years.
My wife and I have been through this process and several thousand dollars later still no results. I have now realized that the USCIS office is truly a runaround process to generate funds with no positive results.We just keep waiting!!!! I have never asked anything of my country until now and still I cannot recieve help!!!! I have filed several congressionals through my senators and still the same old ***!!!!!I have had 2 Attorneys on this matter and still!! To the average American! You have no idea how nasty these people are who work at these offices!!!!I have been astonished at the way they treat my wife!!!!All they say is more money ,more money!!!!!! another 500 dollar application.Even as a U.S. Soldier they still could care less!!!! The media presents immigrants as a lower class human beging!! But keepin mind that almost everybodies family in this country in some way shape or form is not from here!!!!! Not to be negative but wife embracess this country as her own and knows more than the average american when it comes to history,economics,and polotics!!!!!!I am ashamed. My wife comes from Croatia and she was so excited to become an American and after all of this!!!
It makes me look terrible!!!! Overseas it is great America, Wonderful America, Land of Oppurtunity America. But when you return from Iraq It is not!!!! And my wife is astonished to learn the truth..
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by bozarth6786 November 25, 2008 12:38 AM EST
I have found the U.S. Immigration Services to be made up of people that are cold and uncaring. I have been engaged to a beautiful woman in Vietnam for a year and a half and for more than a year we have been trying to obtain a visa for her so she can come to the U.S. where we will be married. We had hoped to be together before the holidays but they will not even talk to me. Our future lies in the hands of one man who works for U.S. Immigration in Vietnam and the only communication I have with him is through his assistant, who is not an American citizen. I have begged and pleaded but my words go unheard. This is another branch of our government that clearly works against us not for us.
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by msgrace12 November 24, 2008 10:06 PM EST
Mr.Simon,regarding your report: I think our immigration people should really open their eyes..these couples were clearly in love and were married, unfortunataly due to the death of a spouse our backwards immigration dept. wants to send the spouses home. Why is it that there are millions of people in this country that are clearly here illegally and immigration does nothing about these people. The illegals are in plain site abusing our hospitals, commiting crimes and what bothers me most is that they refuse to even learn the english language and we accomodate them!! Its an absolute disgrace and as a citizen I would love to know what I can do to see that every illegal is put out. If they want to live here they should have to go through the process. This is what these married couples did and our government is harrassing them ? When my grandmother came here she had to be sponsered and have a place to live. What has happened to this country ? I think it points to greed no matter what way you look at it, but someone is not doing their job and this country is falling apart, surely and quickly! Why is our government ignoring the problem? It is a huge one especially when you look at our economy!
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by aliciadvm November 24, 2008 4:21 PM EST
Definitely this is an abuse.
We came to start a new life with the man we love, made plans together, making our future together, with our kids and suddenly our husbands died before we had our second anniversary. We had to deal not only with the pain of our lost also for the uncertain future.


We loss not only our husbands, we loss our tranquility, we loss our family and also our dignity because now we are going to be treat as a criminal with the subsequence deportation. It doesn''t matter what background you have, how real was the marriage, how much we love our husbands. That''s not fair.

We will always be their surviving spouse as they were, are and will be our husband.


9/11 was the worst that could happen to US.

Widows are not guilty for that.


President Obama: Our future, as surviving spouses of american citizen is in your hands. Help us!!!
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by jmorog November 24, 2008 2:31 PM EST
Mr. Simon:

I saw your story Loss of Love and Country yesterday on 60 Minutes.

Give me a break! In a time when WE as a country face serious issues including immigration why would we have people in the government spending time on these types of issues. It just goes to show one more time how out of touch with reality our government has become. A person with a modicum of common sense could most likely dispense with these issues in favor of the widows in less than a week. Of course then they would be out of work.

I am sorry to be so cynical, but THEY (government bureaucrats) just do not live in the real world of getting things done. They exist in a world of forms, and blame if things are done wrong.

As a tax payer I am outraged when I see stories like this, but I am more outraged as a human to see that WE THE PEOPLE treat others like this.

CHANGE cannot come fast enough for me! Can you please follow up on this to let us know the outcome?

Sincerely,

James G Morog

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by jmorog November 24, 2008 2:29 PM EST
Mr. Simon:

I saw your story Loss of Love and Country yesterday on 60 Minutes.

Give me a break! In a time when WE as a country face serious issues including immigration why would we have people in the government spending time on these types of issues. It just goes to show one more time how out of touch with reality our government has become. A person with a modicum of common sense could most likely dispense with these issues in favor of the widows in less than a week. Of course then they would be out of work.

I am sorry to be so cynical, but THEY (government bureaucrats) just do not live in the real world of getting things done. They exist in a world of forms, and blame if things are done wrong.

As a tax payer I am outraged when I see stories like this, but I am more outraged as a human to see that WE THE PEOPLE treat others like this.

CHANGE cannot come fast enough for me! Can you please follow up on this to let us know the outcome?

Sincerely,

James G Morog

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