Wife of missing GI could face deportation

June 20, 2007|Associated Press

The wife of a Massachusetts soldier missing in Iraq could face deportation, her lawyer said in an interview with a Boston television station yesterday.

Army Specialist Alex Jimenez of Lawrence, who has been missing since his unit was attacked by insurgents in Iraq on May 12, had petitioned for a green card for his wife, Yaderlin, whom he married in 2004, WBZ-TV reported.

Their attorney, Matthew Kolken, said Yaderlin Jimenez illegally entered the United States from the Dominican Republic in 2001. Her husband's request for a green card and legal residence status for her alerted authorities to her situation, Kolken said.

The attorney said his client would not be eligible for a green card under normal circumstances, but he is seeking a hardship waiver for her. If she were to have to leave the United States, she would have to wait 10 years before reapplying.

"I can't imagine a bigger injustice than that, to be deporting someone's wife who is fighting and possibly dying for our country," Kolken told the station.

An immigration judge put a temporary stop to the proceedings since Alex Jimenez was reported missing. The soldier's wife is living with family members in Pennsylvania, the station reported.

US forces continue to search for Jimenez, 25, and a comrade, Private Brian Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Mich.

The soldiers' identification cards were found in an Al Qaeda site north of Baghdad, along with video production equipment, computers, and weapons, the US military said Saturday. An Al Qaeda front group claimed in a video posted on the Internet earlier this month that the soldiers were killed and buried, and it showed images of the ID's. The video offered no proof of their fates.