A Different Kind of Immigration Problem

BODRUM, TURKEY -- My family and I live in Falls Church, but we do not know whether we will be able to go home. We are exiled here because my wife's sister, Nazan Gundogdu, a Turkish citizen, may not be allowed to come back with us to the United States.

Nazan, 56, was born with Down syndrome. She has an IQ in the low 30s and heart problems. Her sister Oya (a naturalized American citizen) and I married 30 years ago, while I was serving at the U.S. Embassy in Turkey. When I retired from the Foreign Service in 1995, we settled in Ankara so that my wife could care for her sister and their widowed mother. After their mother died in 2005, Nazan came to live with Oya and me; she has no other close relative.

Oya and I soon decided that it was time to return to the United States, where our five grandchildren reside. We expected that Nazan would be able to come with us to America, which she had visited five times. However, as a Senate staffer told me, Nazan faces "a lacuna in the law": Post-Sept. 11 immigration policies are focused narrowly on homeland security and illegal immigration, and the U.S. Embassy in Ankara says that Nazan's tourist visa is no longer valid. What about getting her a new visa? U.S. law requires that applicants prove they won't remain in the United States longer than six months. Since Nazan is "joined at the hip" to her sister, who as a citizen has the right to stay indefinitely, we can't prove that Nazan will leave. Lest she become another of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, the embassy has denied my sister-in-law a new tourist visa.

We petitioned the Department of Homeland Security to grant Nazan "humanitarian parole," under which the DHS secretary "may, in his discretion, parole [an alien] into the United States temporarily . . . for urgent humanitarian reasons." She was permitted to enter the United States last October. However, the parole was valid for only a single entry and for a stay of up to one year. For legal reasons, Oya needs to return to Turkey annually. Since the D.C. area has no Turkish-language facilities to care for Nazan, whither Oya goes, her sister goes too. So when they left for Turkey in June, Nazan lost her humanitarian parole status. We've applied for a new parole, but DHS is "highly unlikely" to grant it, according to DHS and legal sources. Meanwhile, Oya's application to sponsor an immigrant visa ("green card") for Nazan will not be considered until 2018, as siblings have the lowest priority for family-based immigration.

So we wait in Turkey.

The choice for my wife, if Nazan's application is rejected, will be excruciating: To return to her adopted country, she must leave her sister behind in Turkey, in custodial care. I need to return to the United States; must I leave my wife behind? Must Nazan die to resolve our predicament?

My sister-in-law is an unlikely security risk: not strong enough, or smart enough, to be a terrorist. She's not going to take a job from an American worker. She won't be a drain on the U.S. welfare system. Why can't our government deal compassionately with her?

-- Donald B. Cofman