Word: nelsoned
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...some on Capitol Hill don't think a temporary measure goes far enough. On June 23, Florida Senator Bill Nelson and Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern introduced legislation, the Fairness to Surviving Spouses Act, that would nix the widow penalty for good. To leverage their message, they were joined by both Goukassian and another military widow, Diana Engstrom, whose husband was killed in Iraq in 2004 in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack. Engstrom, a Kosovo native, found out afterward that she, too, would be deported because she'd been married for less than the two years required for an immigrant spouse...
...legislation may seem a sure bet, but anti-immigration sentiment still runs hot enough in Congress to make passage of the Nelson-McGovern bill a real challenge; and it's likely a big reason the Obama Administration, which is cautiously trying to revive immigration reform, hasn't completely done away with the widow penalty on its own yet. Conservative immigration think tanks like the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, for example, say the rule is a sensible safeguard against rampant marriage fraud, sham matrimonies between a U.S. citizen and a foreigner solely to get the latter a green card...
...died, ruling that the deaths should not nullify the widows' (or widowers') legal residence applications. But there have been judicial defeats for the widows as well - some judges have ruled, understandably, that current immigration law ties their hands - which is why some people are relying on legislation like Nelson-McGovern...
...such couples are indeed soul mates, say widow-penalty opponents, then the immigration rule simply defies any sense of fairness. But to get the Nelson-McGovern bill through Congress, they'll probably have to convince immigration conservatives that making the death of an American spouse a reason for the deportation of a non-American spouse is downright un-American...
...might have some short-term needs based on our fiscal climate that we absolutely have to address,” Nelson says. “But we have long-term commitments to the Houses...