?A New York res­i­dent, born in Trinidad, has grabbed head­lines and tugged at heart­strings fol­low­ing her al­most year-long wait for a spe­cial US visa giv­en to im­mi­grants who have been vic­tims of vi­cious crimes. Akia Pow­er, who is now 24, spent the first three years of her life in Trinidad be­fore mov­ing to Brook­lyn with her fam­i­ly. She was six when her es­tranged fa­ther burst in­to her fam­i­ly's Brook­lyn apart­ment in a jeal­ous rage, shoot­ing and wound­ing Pow­er and her moth­er, killing her ba­by broth­er, then turn­ing the gun on him­self, the New York Dai­ly News re­port­ed yes­ter­day. De­scrib­ing her as a woman with­out a coun­try, the Dai­ly News said: "While she man­aged–with a lot of ther­a­py–o sur­vive the hor­ror of the at­tack, she has no way to prove she en­tered the US legal­ly with her now-de­ceased grand­moth­er.

As a re­sult, she can­not legal­ly work, get a col­lege loan or make a pro­duc­tive life for her­self and her pre­co­cious daugh­ter. "I was an in­no­cent child," said Pow­er, a soft-spo­ken woman who seems wis­er than her years. "I feel like I shouldn't have to suf­fer more for a sit­u­a­tion I didn't ask for. I want to work so bad­ly," the New York news­pa­pers quot­ed her as say­ing. Pow­er's on­ly hope is get­ting a U-Visa from the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, which since 2007 has al­lowed im­mi­grant vic­tims of vi­cious crimes to come out of the shad­ows–even if they came here un­law­ful­ly. The on­ly prob­lem is the NYPD. The agency has been sit­ting on Pow­er's file since May 6, 2009, wait­ing for Com­mis­sion­er Ray­mond Kel­ly to cer­ti­fy two U-Visa cri­te­ria: that Pow­er was the vic­tim of a crime on Feb­ru­ary 24, 1992, and that she told po­lice what she saw.

A po­lice de­part­ment spokesman de­clined to com­ment on Pow­er's case or why it has been stalled for near­ly a year. The NYPD is one of sev­er­al city agen­cies able to cer­ti­fy that an im­mi­grant re­port­ed a crime and helped law en­force­ment. Dis­trict at­tor­ney's of­fices have swift­ly is­sued about 800 cer­ti­fi­ca­tions in the last two years. But when there is no ar­rest or pros­e­cu­tion–as in Pow­er's case, since her fa­ther killed him­self–the NYPD is the on­ly au­thor­i­ty that can pro­vide the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Com­pli­cat­ing mat­ters is the NYPD's 20-step process for U-Visa cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, in which each re­quest must go through five chains of com­mand–and on­ly Kel­ly can ap­prove it.

"The cur­rent NYPD reg­u­la­tions are a shock­ing ex­am­ple of bu­reau­crat­ic in­ef­fi­cien­cy," said Car­men Rey, a lawyer at Sanc­tu­ary for Fam­i­lies and Pow­er.