Slain veteran’s family leaves U.S. as wife’s visa is set to expire | Stars and Stripes

Slain veteran’s family leaves U.S. as wife’s visa is set to expire Stars and Stripes
from Stripes.com -

Hotaru Ferschke said it was her husband’s wish that the child be raised as an American, but the State Department refuses to recognize the couple’s July 2008 marriage because it was never consummated.


Michael Ferschke, 22, a team leader with the Okinawa-based 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, married his wife by telephone during a deployment to Iraq and was killed a month later while conducting house-to-house searches.

His wife and son moved from Okinawa in February to live with Ferschke’s family in Maryville. But without recognition of a legal marriage, they faced deportation when her one-year visa expired.

The Ferschke family had been holding out hope on two bills introduced in Congress last year.

Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., sponsored a House bill to give permanent residency status to Hotaru Ferschke. A similar bill was sponsored in the Senate by Jim Webb, D-Va., Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Mark Udall, D-Colo.

As of Friday, the bill was still in committee in both the House and Senate.

RAD ~ This is another aspect of our enforcement happy immigration policy in the US of A. If you take a look at how these Senators and Congressmen voted on various immigration reform bills in the past how do you suppose it would jibe with their efforts on behalf of this family?