More on the "Widow Penalty"

What happens when your spouse dies and you are waiting for residency? According to U.S law, you are no longer eligible for immigration status. The New York Times reports:

While a foreign spouse of an American citizen is eligible for residency the law also requires that a couple be married at least two years for the foreign spouse to be considered for residency, in part as a safeguard against fraudulent marriages. Moreover, the government has also argued that if the American spouse dies before the two-year mark, the foreign spouse becomes a widow — or widower — effectively annulling the marriage and the right of the foreigner to be considered for residency.

There are at least least 170 immigrants caught in this bind, according to Surviving Spouses Against Deportation, a nonprofit group. They entered the country legally, followed the rules and are now subject to deportation because their spouses died before they had been married for two years.

Bills were submitted in Congress in the last session that would have amended immigration law to provide such relief to surviving spouses. The bills received bipartisan support, but Congress failed to act on them before the end of the session. The bills are expected to be reintroduced in the current session. In a wide-ranging directive issued on Friday, Janet Napolitano asked her staff to review the immigration laws that affect surviving noncitizen spouses.