The Widow Penalty

Today, USCIS is deporting the widows of American citizens, with full authority and sanction from the current Administration, automatically and without exception, where the death of the American spouse occurred before lengthy administrative visa processing could be completed. This practice is morally corrupt, and an injustice.

Attorney and advocate Brent Renison of Surviving Spouses Against Deportation asks the Obama transition team to take a look at the unjust, nonsensical "widow penalty" that the current administration is using to deport surviving spouses of deceased U.S. citizens

Some stories of these widows on CBS:

Raquel, like all the other widows 60 Minutes met, had entered the U.S. legally. Still, immigration has been rejecting requests for permanent residence if the American spouse died before they had their immigration interview to prove their marriage was based on love. But the government can take months - sometimes more than a year - to schedule that interview. Raquel's mother-in-law, Linda, says Raquel shouldn't be penalized because the bureaucracy didn't move fast enough. ‘They were doing things legally. They filed the right papers. They filed them in a timely manner. Things were not processed in a timely manner. And they're, and then my son died. This was not something that you can foresee,' Linda says."