Military wife and deportation
June 21st, 2007 by ashish
Seems very unfair. Her husband is missing in Iraq after an ambush with insurgents, and she is in danger of being deported. Yaderlin Jimenez is a Dominican born illegal immigrant, who entered the US illegally in 2001 and married Army Spc. Alex R. Jimenez, a Purple Heart recipient in 2004. She was already facing action in immigration court, and only the fact that Alex was on a tour of duty prevented her deportation.
And now he has disappeared after an ambush by insurgents, her immigration status is really undecided.
Yaderlin Jimenez’s husband, Army Spc. Alex R. Jimenez, a Purple Heart recipient, disappeared when his unit was ambushed by insurgents May 12. Now the immigration status of his Dominican-born wife, who illegally entered the country in 2001 and married Jimenez in June 2004, hangs in limbo.
If Jimenez was killed in action, his wife might get special treatment to obtain a green card, according to Margaret Stock, an Army colonel and associate professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. “She’s screwed because he’s still alive,” Stock told ABC News. And if he remains missing and considered alive by the Defense Department, Stock said, Yaderlin and her attorney face a difficult challenge of staving off deportation.
This is real crazy. This is the loved spouse of a person who fought for the country, and maybe died for it, and now she may be deported because he is not yet declared dead. This is outside the issue of illegal immigration. Military law does not give any such kind of benefits, but this is an obvious case where her status should be converted into a legal resident, on the way to becoming a citizen. A country needs to show gratitude for those who sacrifice their lives for the country, and threatening her with deportation is not the way to go.
