NATIONAL BRIEFING / NEW YORK
A Jamaican woman who lost her American husband in the 2003 Staten Island Ferry crash cannot remain in the U.S. because they were not married long enough, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, 2-1.
Osserritta Robinson, 31, of Mahwah, N.J., is one of about 170 immigrants who have been denied residency status because of what some call the “widow penalty”: a U.S. law that requires an immigrant to be married for two years to remain in the country if the American spouse dies.
Louis Robinson, her husband of seven months, was one of 11 people killed when a ferry crashed into a Staten Island pier on Oct. 15, 2003.
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