Till Death or the Immigration Service Do They Part

OXNARD — Forced to live 6,000 miles apart because of an immigration mix-up, a Point Mugu Navy mechanic and his wife have reunited after a six-month struggle to get the young woman home from her native land off the African coast.

Married just a year, Shilo Davies, 25, and his 23-year-old wife were split in December when they visited Anaiza Davies’ former island home of Cape Verde.

U.S. officials would not let her return, canceling her student visa. Anaiza had failed, after becoming the wife of an American citizen, to refile for permanent U.S. residency.

“It was pretty bleak,” said Shilo, who is still paying off more than $1,000 in phone calls made during the separation. “When you really love someone, you’ll do anything to hear her voice.”

On Friday, as the couple held hands on a couch in their Oxnard apartment, they said they have emerged from a dark period.

“It’s like night and day,” Shilo said. “Before, I’d come home and there’d be nothing. Now I’ve got someone to go home to.”

Anaiza’s frustrating exile ended about a month ago after she was granted a new visa and left her mother’s home to rejoin her husband.

The snafu was resolved after Shilo called Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) for help in late May. While the congressman said he could not take credit because such a case is usually resolved within six months anyway, he slammed the Immigration and Naturalization Service for letting the wife of an American soldier wait so long in a foreign country.

“You have a young couple that’s a little naive of the laws,” Gallegly said. “But the fact remains: Should she be hung up there for five or six months? Absolutely not. It is a bureaucratic nightmare.”

INS officials said the case should serve as a cautionary tale for visa holders who travel outside the U.S.

“We have a lot of cases where people are here on a visa, and they don’t adjust and take care of their paperwork and can’t get back in,” INS spokesman Ron Rogers said. “It’s a good reminder that there’s not a revolving door on the border, and you have to have proper documents.”

Immigration law requires visa holders to petition the INS if they have major changes in their lives, such as marriage to an American citizen.

The Davies said they did not know of this requirement, even though they checked with immigration officials in San Francisco before leaving the country to make sure Anaiza’s paperwork was in order.

“They’re in such a hurry to get rid of you,” she said. So immigration workers did not pay close enough attention to the Davies’ case, they said.

As they look back now, the couple also said that they should have been more careful themselves. When they were hustling off to Cape Verde to celebrate their first anniversary, they said immigration problems never occurred to them.

But when when they arrived in her homeland, Anaiza’s visa was canceled. And with his leave from Point Mugu running out, Shilo was forced to return home alone.

Anaiza, who was studying in the U.S. to become a dentist, applied for a new visa and hunkered down for a long wait.

As the months wore on, the long-distance relationship began to take its toll.

“You see a lot of long-distance relationships fail,” Shilo said.

Anaiza sent her husband many love letters by fax. Yet she could sense his despair on the phone.

“Sometimes he would call me, and he would be really cold,” she said. “It was the pressure.”

Shilo had hoped that, as a member of the military, his situation would grab attention when he appealed to Gallegly and others. But he’s not sure it did.

“I’ve given seven years to my country,” Shilo said. “But my country blew me off.”

As the couple move on after their ordeal, they are filling out papers to make Anaiza a permanent U.S. resident. She now has a visa allowing her to remain only for two years.

Anaiza is also preparing for fall courses at Oxnard College, and the couple’s bitterness toward immigration officials is fading.

And at some point, they may even go back to Cape Verde.

“It’s very peaceful,” Shilo said. “The beaches are very beautiful.”