By IANS
Boston : The family of American soldier Army Spc. Alex Jimenez, one of two US troopers missing in Iraq, is facing another difficult situation with a deportation order pending against his wife, the Spanish news agency EFE said.
Jimenez, missing since May 12, had applied for a green card on behalf of wife Yaderlin, a fellow Dominican who illegally entered the US in 2001 and wed the soldier in 2004.
Attorney for the couple Matthew Kolken told Boston's WBZ-TV that authorities were aware of Yaderlin's undocumented status when Alex Jimenez began the procedure to get his wife her green card.
He said Yaderlin, who lives with relatives in Pennsylvania, does not qualify to receive a green card but intends to try to get it under a hardship dispensation.
According to current immigration law, if Jimenez's wife leaves the US in the midst of the application process, she has to wait 10 years to return to complete the procedure.
"I can't imagine a bigger injustice than that, that of deporting the wife of somebody who is fighting and possibly dying for our country," Kolken told the television station.
An immigration judge temporarily suspended the proceedings after Jimenez went missing after an ambush in Iraq along with two fellow soldiers. The body of one of those soldiers was later found floating in a river with a gunshot wound, presumably killed by insurgents or Al Qaeda members.
The US Army is continuing the search for Jimenez, 25, and Pvt. Brian Foyt, 19, whose identity documents were found recently in an Al Qaeda safe house north of Baghdad.