Sep
11
Santa Clarita resident Ana Maria Moncayo is fighting to stay in the US after her US border patrol husband Agent John Gigax died while on duty. The Ecuadorian immigrant now faces a tough legal battle against deportation by the United States Citizenship and immigration Services.
Another widow fighting deportation is a Kenyan immigrant woman whose husband died trying to save two young boys from drowning in 2006.
Jacqueline Coats lost her husband Marlin on Mother’s Day 2006 at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach.
Coats had been struggling to reinstate her lapsed student visa from San Jose University when she met Marlin Coats in 2004. The couple had plans to marry when immigration officials began deportation proceedings against her in April 2006, and married 11 days after receiving the notice.
US law does not protect those who are widowed before achieving citizenship or permanent legal residency.