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British Widow Can Stay
In US - INS Apologizes
By Philip Delves Broughton in New York
The Telegraph
10-11-1

A British woman facing deportation after her husband died in the World Trade Centre attacks will be allowed to stay in America.
 
Deena Gilbey, 37, was told by the Immigration and Naturalisation Service yesterday that, despite earlier warnings, she would not be ordered to leave the country.
 
The service also apologised for its insensitivity over sending a computer-generated letter saying that she was now an illegal alien.
 
Her husband, Paul, worked in a brokerage house on the 84th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Centre.
 
They had lived in America for eight years and have two sons, Maxwell, seven, and Mason, three, who were born in the United States and are therefore citizens.
 
"That's fantastic, I can't believe it," said Mrs Gilbey after being told she would be able to stay for the time being.
 
She said she had not yet told her children about the immigration problems as they were still too traumatised after their father's death.
 
She added: "It was too much for them to comprehend. I was hoping the day wasn't going to come when I was going to have to tell them that we were having to leave."
 
Soon after it became clear that her husband had died in the attacks, Mrs Gilbey contacted the immigration service and asked about her legal status. Up to then, she had been categorised as a "dependent spouse", able to live but not work in America.
 
She and her husband were applying for Green Cards, which would have allowed them to work in America. But last week, she was told that her residency depended on her husband's job. Her children could stay, but she would have to go.
 
Mrs Gilbey, who is originally from Southend, Essex, had hoped to make her home in New Jersey. She joined the nearly 100 other foreign spouses widowed on September 11 and began lobbying politicians and the media to take up their case. Her American friends said they would protect her if the authorities came to get her.
 
The next problem she faces is having her husband's death benefits taxed at 60 per cent, the rate for foreigners in America, making it impossible to pay her mortgage. Lawyers, however, have offered to work free of charge to help her and the other widowed spouses to find a solution.

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