Skip to main content

New Options for Surviving Spouses of US Citizens


A marriage ending in the death of the US Citizen spouse before the two-year anniversary has, in the past, translated into “sayonara,” for the immigrant spouse and their minor children. However, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently issued a memorandum granting deferred action to these widows and their qualifying children. The memo outlines different policies depending on where these surviving spouses are in the immigration process, demonstrating that Secretary Napolitano will be a valuable component of a reform package that will, hopefully, make great strides towards humanitarian relief in the US immigration system.

The new memo is sort of like 31 Flavors in that there’s something for everybody. For instance:

If the Form I-130 (Immediate Relative Petition) has been approved prior to the death of the US Citizen spouse, the surviving spouse may request reinstatement of the petition, which, by law, is automatically revoked. US Citizenship and Immigration Services can use its discretion to grant any reinstatement based upon the humanitarian considerations of the particular case. From there, the surviving spouse may proceed to the adjustment of status process (if they are in the US) or the consular processing stage (if they are outside of the US).

If the Form I-130 is pending at the time of the death of the US Citizen spouse, the petition will be held in abeyance, along with any concurrently filed Form I-485 (Application to Register for Permanent Residence). In the meantime, the surviving spouse is eligible for interim benefits, such as advance parole or an Employment Authorization Document.

If the Form I-130 was denied before the issuance of the new memo due to the death of the US Citizen spouse, the surviving spouse may now request deferred action by filing a Form I-360 (Petition for Amerasian, Widow or Special Immigrant).

If Form I-130 was not filed prior to the death of the US Citizen spouse, but the pair were legally married, the surviving spouse may also request deferred action through the filing of Form I-360.

The validity period for the deferred action is two years from the grant of Form I-360, making this just another ticking time bomb in the arsenal of immigration issues that must be reformed and resolved sooner rather than later.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

If You Are An Immigrant (even a US Citizen), Here Are 9 Things You Should Know

Are you a Naturalized U.S. Citizen, Lawful Permanent Resident, Visa Holder, or an Undocumented Immigrant? We recommend you take the following steps to protect yourself in our current version of America. The last couple of weeks have reminded immigrants, even naturalized U.S. citizens, that they were not born in the United States. Our office has received countless phone calls, emails, and social media messages from people worrying about what their family’s future in the United States holds. Most people want to know what they can do now to protect themselves from what promises to be a wave of anti-immigration activity by the federal government. Trump's Executive Order on Interior Enforcement has some provisions that should make most Americans shiver.  We recommend the following actions for each of the following groups: Naturalized U.S. citizens. In particular if you have a foreign accent, and you are traveling within 100 miles of any US Border (including the oceans

Seven Reasons Why the Georgia Legislature Should Repeal HB-87

Recently the Alabama Attorney General called on the Alabama State Legislature to repeal parts of Alabama's horrid anti-immigration law ( HB 56), because of the "unintended" consequences of the bill (frankly, what happened was not unintended). Because of the similarity between the two laws, Georgia's Speaker of the House, David Ralston was asked whether Georgia Legislature would repeal part or all of HB 87, Georgia own anti-immigration law. HB 87 has caused almost a half a billion dollars in damage to the Georgia economy (along with untold suffering in Georgia's immigrant communities) without any noted or reported positive effect. Speaker Ralston plainly stated that the Georgia Legislature would NOT do anything to repeal HB 87 . While it understandable why a politician would not admit that a pet bill he shepherded and pushed through the state legislature was simply bad law, it is also clear that Speaker Ralston is facing a challenge on his RIGHT in th

How To Stop Illegal Immigration

In the midst of the never ending political season, we hear much rhetoric about immigration, and what candidates will "do" to fix what everyone considers to be a broken (not failed, just broken) immigration system.  Most of the candidates, however, put a condition on fixing this broken system by saying that:  "FIRST, we must secure the border and end illegal immigration, then we will talk."   What will it take to accomplish this precondition to solve a the acknowledged problem. There are two types of "illegal" immigration to the United States.  The first is what everyone already considers to be illegal immigration--those who enter the United States without a visa through our thousands of miles of borders.  Proposals to fix this particular type of illegal immigration range from alligators and moats, to automatic firing machine guns, to “beautiful” walls, to limitless numbers of border patrol agents.  The second type of "illegal" immigratio