Feinstein Urges INS to Review Van Nuys Woman’s Case

In an effort to head off the possible deportation of Jasmin Salehi, the South Korean woman whose American husband was slain just 11 months after they were wed, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has asked the head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to take a “personal look” at the tragic case.

In a letter sent Tuesday to INS Commissioner Doris Meissner, Feinstein said Salehi’s situation was extraordinary, and urged Meissner to search for a way to grant residency to the 32-year-old Van Nuys resident.

“I am writing to ask you to take a personal look into this case, as I have done,” Feinstein wrote. “Surely, the current INS regulations are not meant to instill further harm on someone whose spouse is brutally murdered.”

Meissner’s office could not be reached Friday for comment.

Salehi, a soft-spoken Seoul native, married Cyrus Salehi in March 1995, two years after meeting him during a Los Angeles visit. Eleven months later, Cyrus Salehi was killed during a robbery at a Denny’s restaurant in Reseda, where he was the manager and part-owner.

A 20-year-old man is accused of shooting Cyrus Salehi once in the chest, even though Cyrus had handed over the $400 in the cash register.

Last month Salehi went to the INS in Los Angeles for an interview that had been scheduled months before her husband was killed. Officials told her that according to immigration law she had to have been married two years to be granted residency, and if she was no longer married, she would have to leave the country.

After her story was picked up by a dozen news organizations, including several Korean-language TV and radio stations and newspapers, the local INS office said Salehi could stay through the murder trial.

Also on Friday, the director of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime said her office would work with the INS and Feinstein to “ensure a fair resolution” of Salehi’s case.

In a letter to Ralph and Francine Myers, who took up Salehi’s cause after meeting her through a support group for the families of murder victims, director Aileen Adams said she was attempting to meet with INS officials to discuss the case.