The 'Widow Penalty' Upheld

A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that immigration officials properly terminated a Jamaican woman’s application for permanent residency after her husband died in the Staten Island ferry crash in 2003. The New York Times reports:

The court ruled that because the woman, Osserritta Robinson, was married to her husband for less than two years before his death, her pending residency application could be terminated. The ruling came in a 2-1 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. It overturned a May 2007 ruling by a federal district court judge in New Jersey that the federal government had wrongfully determined that Ms. Robinson, 31, was no longer the spouse of her late husband. The Robinsons were married for eight months.

In his dissenting opinion, Judge Nygaard blamed the government for its slow response to Ms. Robinson’s petition for permanent residency.

“This same department whose delay or inaction forecloses Osserritta Robinson’s chance of becoming an American, now so diligently pursues the avenues of her expulsion,” he wrote. “My view, wholly in the margin, is that it is untoward of this nation of immigrants, we who have passed through the portals of citizenship, to coldly and impassively slam the door behind us on innocent aspirants who dream to follow.”