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 with two of her children, a lawyer and a family friend, sick to her stomach with nerves.
An agent placed a form on the counter. She signed it.
Coronado turned to the 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.
Tampa attorney John Ovink, who learned of the case from the Times, urged Smith to rush her application. He took on her case for free.
A permanent resident from Mexico, Hilario had applied for his wife's green card before he fell sick. It never came. 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'd closed her case when they couldn't find her after the family moved.
"This grabbed me by the heart and didn't let go," Smith said.
Her boss, Kathy Redman, the immigration officer in charge in Tampa, said her office expedites only one or two emergencies a year.
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.
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.
