What Happened To Just Using Common Sense?

[Nice n Easy Rider]

Proxy wedding means Marine's widow, baby unwelcome

http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/national/story/6019367/

Here is a case where the wife and husband, a marine, considered themselves to be married. The marines considered them to be married. The marine's parents considered them to be married. The Marines are paying survivor's benefits to the widow and child. And yet the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services doesn't recognize the marriage because the Immigration & Nationality Act requires that the marriage be consummated if both parties weren't physically present for the ceremony.

Given the recent Administrators' serious warning I'm not trying to start anything with a political bent just stating a sincere hope that common sense will prevail and our government officials will do right by the family of a soldier that gave his life for his country.

[azkaisr]

I don't think this is political. I think it is someone following the law which needs to be changed. I have no doubt that they will find a way to make this work.

[CarrotNC]

Okay I'll bite, but with more questions and no answers.

 

Does the INS have to witness the consummation?

Does the INS have performance requirements or standards of measurement for consummation to be considered complete?

 

Consider this: a male soldier wounded in battle prior to a marriage ceremony has lost the necessary "equipment" to complete a consummation, would the INS deny his foreign-citizen wife from having US-citizenship by marriage?

[DavidEBSmith]

The article says that their US representative has introduced a private bill to allow her to stay, which sounds like an appropriate solution. The provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act was enacted to combat immigration fraud, and apparently works in the overwhelming majority of cases. In this particular extraordinary situation there's good cause to make an exception for this one person, and the private bill will do that.

 

Unfortunately, just using common sense doesn't always work. You need to have an objective standard by which everyone can agree that this is immigration fraud, and that isn't. Common sense isn't objective, it's in the eye of the beholder. But you can't write a general law to fit every conceivable situation that comes up. Therefore you make exceptions to the general law possible but difficult to obtain.

[Mike]

Eebie's got it . . . the law is sometimes a blunt instrument, written in a way to accomplish a broad objective, but unable to foresee every nuance that might occur in the future. I hope the private bill passes--it would not be right to keep this woman and the their son out of the U.S.