Victim’s Widow Allowed to Stay in U.S.

She knows deep sorrow. She knows great joy.

Jasmin Salehi experienced both emotional extremes Wednesday, when she learned she would not be forced to return to her native South Korea. She had feared deportation because she had not been married long enough to her naturalized American husband when he was slain more than two years ago.

In its final action before adjourning for the year, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved legislation to grant permanent resident status to Salehi. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), is expected to be signed by President Clinton in the next few days.

“I’m really happy that the Congress passed the bill and that I don’t have to face deportation,” Salehi said in a telephone interview.

Although the favorable vote settled the immigration matter, Salehi said she must still cope with the loss of her husband.

“No one can imagine losing someone by violence, and on top of it, having to go through the deportation phase,” Salehi said. “I don’t want anyone else to have the same problem as me.”

The thought of returning to South Korea was devastating, she said, because she had fallen in love, married and made her life here. “If I had to go back, it would not be justice. I did not commit a crime in this country. . . . Those criminals [responsible for her husband’s death] were not going to be deported, so why should I?”

Salehi, whose given name is Mai Hoa Joo, met her late husband, Cyrus Salehi, at a downtown Denny’s restaurant in 1993. Then a resident of Seoul, she was in Los Angeles to visit her sister, a student at a local fashion design school.

The sisters went to brunch at the restaurant, where Jasmin was noticed by the Iranian-born Salehi, who became a naturalized citizen in 1995 after 20 years as a legal resident.

The couple married on March 20, 1995, in Las Vegas. That August, they had a formal ceremony attended by family and friends.

Early Feb. 3, 1996, a 20-year-old gang member named Ruben Lopez walked into a Denny’s in Reseda, where Cyrus Salehi was managing the graveyard shift. Lopez’s accomplice and two girls waited in a getaway car. Lopez demanded money. Salehi handed over $400 from the cash drawer. Lopez shot Salehi to death.

Both Lopez and Samuel Martinez, who drove the getaway car, were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service requires legal immigrants such as Jasmin Salehi to have been married for two years before they are eligible for permanent resident status. She had been married for 11 months at the time of the killing.

Inspired by Times articles about the tragedy, Ralph and Francine Myers, whose son was killed when he confronted gang members, offered to help guide the newly widowed Salehi through the government bureaucracy.

The Myerses, Salehi and her sister planned to gather for a celebratory dinner Wednesday night at Salehi’s Sherman Oaks home.

Feinstein had drafted a private relief bill to allow Salehi to stay in the United States, but it died in committee. A second bill, jointly sponsored by Feinstein and Sherman, proved successful.

“It was a long time to get to this point,” Salehi said Wednesday. “There were a lot of up and down times. You never knew what was going to happen.”

Salehi said Sherman called her Wednesday afternoon with the good news as he was flying home to Los Angeles from Washington, D.C. Feinstein called, too, and told Salehi she no longer had to fear deportation.

“Those criminals who killed my husband totally destroyed my life,” she said. “I can’t put my life back, but I am not dead yet. I will build my life all over again.”