By Peter Hecht - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDTMonday, September 10, 2007

For Kenyan immigrant Jacqueline Coats, Mother's Day 2006 began as the most idyllic of American experiences.

It started with a Sunday brunch with her mother-in-law, Camille Coats. Next, she accompanied her U.S.-born husband, Marlin Coats of San Leandro, and a throng of his brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews to a Coats family gathering at San Francisco's Ocean Beach.

But the wondrous day took a tragic turn. Marlin -- an assistant manager of a cellular phone store and a former lifeguard -- heard two boys he didn't know crying for help in the rolling surf. He didn't hesitate.

"He just ran right past me -- right into the water -- to save them," Jacqueline recalled. Marlin pulled a 14-year-old boy to safety. But he got caught in a riptide trying to rescue the boy's 11-year-old brother. The second boy survived. Marlin Coats didn't.

Her husband's death left Jacqueline Coats battling a different kind of riptide -- because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were pushing to deport her because of problems with a student visa.

Now U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, numerous California lawmakers, Coats' American family by marriage and her Oakland employer are rallying to her cause so that the Kenyan woman can remain permanently in the United States.

"He (Marlin Coats) went into the surf off of Ocean Beach to save two children who were drowning and he drowned himself. I think that is a true test of character and the making of a hero," said Feinstein, who is seeking passage of a Senate bill to block Jacqueline Coats' deportation. "His wife depended on him for her legitimacy here. Because he was taken from the world this way, I don't think this should count against her."

Coats said she had been struggling to reinstate her student visa -- which lapsed in 2003 because she hadn't completed enough units during her first semester as a foreign student studying mass communications at San Jose State University in 2001. She blamed the problem on a scheduling conflict that left her one class short of a full schedule.

In February 2004, she met Marlin Coats. They went out on their first date to see the movie "The Passion of the Christ" and she soon joined him regularly for services at the Church of Christ in San Francisco.

She said the couple decided to marry and were planning a double ceremony with Marlin's twin brother and his fiancée. But in April 2006, immigration officials began deportation proceedings against her. The couple sped up their wedding plans and married 11 days after receiving the notice.

They then filled out -- and signed -- paperwork seeking to grant her permanent residency as the wife of a U.S. citizen.

Well before he dashed into the water at Ocean Beach, Jacqueline Coats said her husband "was the kind of person who in a crisis situation never panicked. He was never overwhelmed. He always had a solution for everything."

But he died that May 14, before the family's attorney had sent off the papers to immigration officials. His death left his widow in danger of deportation. The law does not protect spouses who are widowed if they have not achieved citizenship or permanent legal residency.

Now Coats, 28, is a cause célèbre for politicians who don't want to see her punished because her husband was a hero. He was posthumously awarded the national Gold Lifesaving Medal by the U.S. Coast Guard and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco.

Coats' case is also being watched by immigration lawyers who say there may be as many as 100 spouses being denied U.S. residency because their husbands or wives died while their immigration applications were pending.

On Aug. 30, a suit proposed as a class action was filed in Los Angeles on behalf of 22 women whose petitions for permanent residency were canceled by U.S. immigration officials because their husbands had died before the applications were approved.

The plaintiffs include South African native Carolyn Robb, a Santa Monica resident and former head chef for Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Her immigration petition was set aside when her husband, actor William "Bill" Hootkins, died of pancreatic cancer.

The residency application for another plaintiff, Ana Maria Moncayo, a Santa Clarita resident from Ecuador, was voided by immigration officials after her husband -- U.S. Border Patrol Agent John Gigax -- died in a car accident while on duty.

And Canadian-born Tracy Lee Rudl of La Jolla lost her immigration bid when husband Corey Nicholas, an Internet marketing executive, died as a passenger in a racing accident at the California Speedway in San Bernardino.

Oregon attorney Brent Renison said he filed the lawsuit to end an immigration "widow penalty" and allow the plaintiffs -- some already in deportation proceedings -- to reopen applications for permanent residency.

Renison said Coats' case may be added to the suit against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and director Emilio Gonzalez, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"It's just a basic fairness issue, a basic moral issue," Renison said. "You don't compound the loss of someone who is grieving by destroying their chances of staying."

Ira Mehlman, national media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said spousal visas for Coats and other immigrant widows shouldn't be granted.

"The bottom line is that these visas are meant so that spouses can be reunited or united" with American citizens, he said. "If there is no spouse with whom to be united with, then what is the point of the spousal visa?"

But Coats' supervisors at the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District are supporting her petition to stay, arguing that she has been a model employee while working five years -- under a legal permit -- as a bus driver and dispatcher.

Coats said she remains close to her Kenyan parents, George and Lucy Muhoro, a real estate agent and retired insurance company worker, and four siblings in Africa. But after 6 1/2 years, she said she has forged a new life in California and wants to stay. And she has the support of her American family.

"We come from a very large, close-knit family and Jacqueline is part of the family," said Theris Coats, a Sacramento music producer and her uncle after her marriage to Marlin. "With this tragedy, we've rallied around her. She's not out there on her own."

On Sept. 28, 2006, immigration officials suspended proceedings against Coats after Feinstein introduced a Senate bill to block her deportation and allow her to seek permanent residency.

But the bill went nowhere in the Republican-controlled Senate and Feinstein filed the measure again this year, hoping for a better chance with a narrow Democratic majority. The new bill, filed in January, hasn't cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Last month, Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley, announced that she was creating a national petition drive to urge passage of the Feinstein bill to "prevent an unjust deportation and honor the memory of Marlin Coats." Thirty-three other California lawmakers promptly signed the petition.

"The activists made it sound as if her removal was imminent," said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice. Saying Coats is "not even in immigration proceedings at this time" due to the Feinstein bill, she asked: "Why is there so much hue and cry about this now?"

Coats' American mother-in-law said it's because she now considers Jacqueline one of her own.

"It's important for me that she stays," said Camille Coats. "She is part of the family. And if they sent her back to Africa, it would be like losing Marlin all over again."