Will “widow penalty” be made zero?

It was bad that 21-year old Natalia Goukassian spent her honeymoon in West Palm Beach in June 2006, helping her ill husband, Tigran. Then she never thought even in her dreams that the worst was still to come. Though the Veteran Affairs Department reckoned that she was eligible for survival spouse benefits, the Homeland Security officials thought the other way round. They told Natalia at her interview for legal residence that she would be deported because she hadn’t been married for a satisfactory period prior to Tigran death.

Natalia, who is now 24-year old, said that the whole incident seemed to her as the coldest bureaucratic thing she ever came across. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, suspended the enforcement of rule earlier this month due to growing number of lawsuits from the “widow penalty” in the immigration regulations of the US, and marked that in a smart immigration policy, strong enforcement practices are balanced with practical solutions to complicated issues and some commonsense.

But there are few people on Capitol Hill who believe that stop-gap measure will not have the desired effect. Senator of Florida, Bill Nelson and Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern declared legislation, the Fairness of Surviving Spouses Act, on the 23rd of June, according to which there would be no widow penalty for the betterment of the society.

The legislation may be an ideal solution to this problem, but the anti-immigration sentiment which is still very much present in the Congress will make sure that the passage of the Nelson-McGovern bill is not going to be easy.