Immigration Limbo

Sgt. Michael Ferschke of the U.S. Marines was killed in Iraq last year, leaving behind a widow and infant son, both Japanese citizens. Michael's widow, Hotaru wants to raise their son in the Tennessee home of Michael's parents, but U.S. immigration laws are standing in the way. The United States is denying Hotaru and her son permanent residency rights, citing a 1950s legal standard that was put in place with the intention of preventing marraige fraud. The U.S. government won't recognize the marriage, but the military does.

Michael and Hotaru had been together in Japan for over a year and she was pregnant when Michael was deplyed to Iraq. After his deployment, they were married in what is called a proxy wedding. Japan does not require an actual wedding ceremony. Instead, couples sign sworn affidavits stating that they are legally free to marry and they register at a Japanese municipal government office. They don't have to both be present and together for the marriage.

The United States Military recognizes proxy marriages to make things easier for couples who are separated by war. They also pay health and survivor benefits to the spouse in a proxy marriage. Michael and Hotaru's proxy marraige took place in July while they were on separate continents. Michael was killed one month later.

Now the U.S. government is denying Hotaru residency rights based on a 57-year old immigration law that states the marraige must be consummated to be recognized. The couple were not able to meet in person again after the proxy wedding before Michael was killed.

The law preventing Hotaru from becoming an American citezen was put into place to prevent fraudulent marraiges between people who never intended to actually live together and only married to guarantee citizenship for one of them.


My intial reaction to this story is sympathy for Michael's widow and baby. It's hardy her fault that the marraige wasn't consummated after the wedding. That's just a hazard of Michael's chosen career. I don't really understand why it's totally fine for the military to pay out benefits to her as his surviving widow, but the government won't even recognize her as his wife.

The more I read about why the laws are in place, the more I understood that they do serve a purpose. I realized that without them, there would be fraudulent marriages galore.
I can see that there must be some kind of regulation enforced to prevent anyone and everyone from finding an easy way to obtain citizenship. I'm a firm believer that people should earn their citizenship to ANY country, not just the United States, so these laws make sense to an extent.

After considering that these laws might be beneficial in many circumstances, I thought about people like Hotaru who are denied entry to the country because of what really just amounts to bad timing. I think that whoever is in charge of enforcing these rules should also look at individual cases that might warrant a closer investigation. It's unfair to apply one big blanket rule to every case without looking at situations like Hotaru and Michael a little more closely.

I hope that someone does reconsider in Hotaru's situation and allow her to live in her husband's country. It would be a shame that the child, who will never meet his father, would also never get to meet his grandparents.