Marine’s widow gets bipartisan Senate help

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Marine’s widow who has been fighting to remain in the U.S. with her 8-month-old son is now getting bipartisan help from the Senate.

Hotaru Nakama married Sgt. Michael Ferschke by phone in 2008 while he was stationed in Iraq and she was in Japan. He died in combat a month later, but a 1950s immigration rule says the couple’s marriage was not consummated though she was already pregnant with their child. Hotaru and her son have been staying temporarily with her in-laws in Tennessee, but immigration officials denied her request for a permanent visa.

Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, and Tennessee Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker announced Tuesday they would sponsor a private bill to match an effort in the House to allow her permanent residency.

Webb said the bill would “right a wrong for a Marine’s family who paid the ultimate sacrifice for his country.”

The couple were together about 13 months before she found out she was pregnant. Not wanting to wait until his tour was complete, the couple agreed on a proxy wedding.

Hotaru Ferschke said she and her husband got their proxy marriage simply by completing the paperwork and their marriage was final on July 10, one month before he was shot during a house search.

While the military has recognized her marriage, she was denied when she applied for permanent residency. The Immigration & Nationality Act says that, for the purposes of immigration law, the definition of spouse does not include a “wife or husband by reason of any marriage ceremony where the contracting parties thereto are not physically present in the presence of each other, unless the marriage shall have been consummated.”

U.S. Rep. John Duncan of Tennessee first introduced a private bill into Congress this summer. A private bill does not affect immigration policy.

Corker said private bills should only be used as a last resort, but that all administrative and judicial remedies have been exhausted.

“This bill seems to be the only way to honor the wishes of the late Sgt. Michael Ferschke and allow Hotaru to raise their child in the United States,” he said.