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America, her home at last

A Wimauma woman whose hope for a green card would have died with her husband is now a permanent resident.

By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
Published March 8, 2006

[Times photo: John Pendygraft]

A friend hugs Gricelda Coronado near the bedside of her dying husband, Hilario Coronado, after Gricelda received proof of permanent residency. Until the government stepped in, her hopes to remain in the country legally were set to die with Hilario, a permanent resident from Mexico in hospice care. Now she can legally work to support their three children.

TAMPA - They whisked her past the security guards, through the metal detector and into a room. Inside the offices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Gricelda Coronado waited Tuesday sick to her stomach with nerves.

An agent placed a form on the counter. She signed it.

Then, she was escorted down a corridor into the private office of the top immigration official for the area. Inside, she began to cry.

"Thank you," she repeated in English and Spanish.

Coronado turned to the immigration agent who helped her find a way to stay in the country legally after her husband dies. The two women hugged, and the agent's eyes welled with tears.

"Vaya con Dios," Kristen Smith, a district supervisor, told Coronado. Go with God.

In December, Smith put Coronado's case on the fast track after a story appeared in the St. Petersburg Times about Coronado's plight.

Until the government stepped in, Coronado's hopes to remain in the country legally were set to die with her husband Hilario, a permanent resident from Mexico in hospice care after suffering nine strokes.

Hospice workers do not expect him to live long. His organs are slowly shutting down. The strokes, brought on by diabetes and high blood pressure, are taking a toll.

Tampa attorney John Ovink, who learned of the case from the Times, urged Smith to rush her application. He took on Coronado's case for free.

Hilario had applied for his wife's green card before he fell sick. It never arrived. And the law says if a sponsor dies before the green card is approved, the application is thrown out.

As her husband's health deteriorated last year, Gricelda worried how she would legally work to support their three children, ages 13, 12 and 11. She called immigration about her green card, but officials told her they had closed her case when they couldn't find her after the family moved.

Reopening the case could have taken at least nine months - time the family didn't have.

Smith arranged Gricelda's interviews and fingerprints at local immigration offices the first week of January. Then, Smith asked the FBI to expedite a national background check required for applicants. Smith followed up for updates until she got the news last week.

"This grabbed me by the heart and didn't let go," she said.

Her boss, Kathy Redman, the immigration officer in charge in Tampa, said her office expedites one or two emergencies a year. Gricelda's case was one of them.

"We're all human, and the humanitarian aspect (of her case) was important to us," Redman said.

Back at home in an apartment in Wimauma Tuesday afternoon, Gricelda hugged friends and received congratulations. Now, she can find work. Now, she can visit her sick sister in Mexico who needs a kidney transplant.

But she can't help her husband. He continues to breathe through a respirator and receives nourishment through a feeding tube.

Gricelda leaned over his bed Tuesday afternoon and told him the news, stroking his hair. Just for a moment, he focused his eyes on the immigration paper she held. He moved his mouth as if trying to say something. But no words came out.

Still, she believes that he hears her.

Saundra Amrhein can be reached at 813 661-2441 or amrhein@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 8, 2006, 01:41:06]