Massachusetts resident Sandra Simon's husband, Evans Stenley Simon, was deported in 2002. She visits her spouse once a year in Haiti and has hired a lawyer in hopes of returning him to the U.S.
JOHN TLUMACKI: BOSTON GLOBE



June 21, 2008, 11:53PM
Marriage license doesn't equal fast U.S. citizenship
Tougher laws on immigration are keeping more spouses apart


By MARIA SACCHETTI
Boston Globe


QUINCY, MASS. — On a proud December day, Nancy Hanna raised her right hand in the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester and took the oath of U.S. citizenship. Then she rushed home to call her congressman: She told him she wanted her husband back.

Hanna believed that becoming a U.S. citizen would open the door for her husband, Ekram, a native of Egypt like her, to join her in this country.

But that was more than two years ago. Now, instead of living with her husband, she is a single mother learning a hard lesson increasingly confronting U.S. citizens and their immigrant spouses: Marriage is no guarantee of legal residency.

"I thought it was going to be easy, that my husband would come back," said Hanna, her eyes welling up as she sat in the condominium they shared in Quincy overlooking the bay. "My whole life has been on hold now."

Traditionally, marriage to a U.S. citizen is one of the easiest ways for immigrants to gain legal residency. But now it can be an uphill battle.


Marriage not best solution
The government has long screened for sham marriages involving immigrants, including by asking applicants such questions as the name of the person who fixed them up or who attended their wedding.

But immigration lawyers say federal law is increasingly tough on real married couples, as well as those in which the spouse has violated immigration law, such as crossing the border illegally. Federal law requires such violators to return to their native countries while their spouses apply for permission to bring them back.

In the past, some short-term laws have waived that requirement, but current law can keep couples apart for as long as a decade. The law, first passed in 1996, bars people who have lived here illegally for several years: three years if they have been here six months or more, and 10 years if they have resided here for more than a year.

The restrictions often come as a shock to newly married immigrants and their U.S. citizen spouses, who thought marriage would solve their problems.

"So many people come into my office and say: 'OK, I married a U.S. citizen. Can I have a green card now?' " said Joy Cahaly, a Boston immigration lawyer. "No. There's a lot more to it than that."

Immigration officials say they are simply enforcing the law.

"People believe once they're married to a U.S. citizen they're home free, but that's just not the case, and that's never been the case," said Shawn Saucier, spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.


Paying the price
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors stricter controls on immigration, said the people in difficult situations have skirted or broken the laws and now are paying a price for it.

Cahaly, with the support of Sen. John Kerry, is fighting the deportation of Norma Al-Hilfy, the Guatemala-born spouse of a naturalized U.S. citizen, Raad Al-Hilfy, who was wounded in a grenade attack in Iraq while working as a translator.

The couple, who own a house in Watertown, have a baby boy.

Norma Al-Hilfy sneaked into the United States illegally about 17 years ago and has been ordered to leave.

Cahaly is hopeful the government will ultimately let her stay in this country. But if an immigration judge deports her, she will not be able to return for 10 years because of the federal law.






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