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Fight for life replaces fight for green card

Oakland Tribune, Sep 4, 2006 by Martin Ricard, STAFF WRITER

HAYWARD -- Maria Rivas has faced her share of barriers in life, but none like this.

A single mother with two sons, Rivas was a victim of domestic violence for many years at the hands of her husband, a permanent resident who petitioned for her legal status in 1998. She says he often used her immigration status as a tool of control, forcing her to remain in the relationship and threatening to withdraw her papers. He has since disappeared.

The Violence Against Women Act, passed by Congress in 1994, allowed the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to expedite Rivas's application this year for her green card.

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That hurdle was barely cleared when tragedy struck: Rivas recently was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and her doctors toldher she had only four months to live. Now she is trying to travel back to her hometown -- Culiacan, Mexico -- to have closure with her family before she dies. But she has no money to pay for the trip, because her cancer has prevented her from working.

"Here I am fighting to live," she said, anxiously contemplating her fate. "But I wish God would give me more time to live."

Domestic violence occurs in nearly half of the nation's homes. Each year, about 3 million to 4 million people are battered.

Rivas' struggle is an example of how abuse traps immigrants into a cycle of fear and submission because of the threat of deportation.

The number of abused spouses and children seeking relief under the self-petitioning process is small but increasing, according to a recent U.S. Immigration Services report. Forty-eight percent of immigrant Latinas reported that domestic violence by their partners had increased since immigrating to the U.S., a study by the Family Violence Prevention Fund found.

Last year, Immigration Services approved more than 3,400 petitions, said regional spokeswoman Marie Sebrechts. But with 3,000 to 5,000 immigrant spouses complaining every year of being battered, Sebrechts said, approving petitions for all of them can be a daunting task, and some do fall through the cracks.

"Do people have problems with it? Yeah," she said. "With people who come through Immigration's doors every year, there are people who have problems (with the system) and each case is really, really heart wrenching."

The Violence Against Women Act allows immigrant spouses to obtain immigration relief without their abusers' cooperation or knowledge. Rivas was able to take advantage of the act since her husband filed her papers in 1998, allowing her to use that date to speed up her waiting period for a green card, instead of enduring the seven-year waiting period for most spouses of permanent residents from Mexico.

Despite these difficulties, officials have been on Rivas' side since learning of her plight.

"A lot of U.S. citizens think that immigration is just another set of papers that somebody fills out, but they don't understand how labyrinthine, how arbitrary and how fraught with error it is," said Susan Bowyer, managing attorney of International Institute of the East Bay, which helped Rivas with her case. "Without the ability to convince immigration officers that Maria's case needed special attention, she would have died before she had a chance to fulfill her dream of returning to her home."

A number of agencies pitched in not only to make sure her petition was granted, but also to vouch for her need to travel to Mexico.

In most cases, without a green card, immigrants can't travel back and forth out of the country. Last week, Rivas was given special permission to travel, primarily because of her terminal illness.

Now, Rivas is waiting to fulfill her last wish in life: to be together with her family.

"I want to be there. It's my dream," Rivas said. "But it's going to be hard to come back to the U.S. That's the last time I'm going to see them."

The Sorenson branch of Bank of America, 26801 Mission Blvd., in Hayward has set up an account for those who would like to make a donation to Rivas's travel expenses so that she can make her last trip to see her family. The account number is 08927-41104.

Fight for life replaces fight for green card

Oakland Tribune, Sep 4, 2006 by Martin Ricard, STAFF WRITER

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