By: The Associates Press – Published: May 2, 2009
A federal judge in Los Angeles has ordered the government to reopen the immigration cases of dozens of foreign widows whose American-citizen spouses died before the women could get their green cards. The judge, Christina A. Snyder, ruled that the Department of Homeland Security could not deny the widows’ applications to remain in the United States legally because the agency did not process the paperwork before their spouses died. The ruling paves the way for the widows in Western states to have their applications for green cards reopened. The Citizenship and Immigration Service has argued that the law requires that residency applications be rejected for immigrants whose American spouses die within two years of marriage.
