Too easy to fake: US needs stricter screening for marriage visas

This August, the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment describing a large-scale marriage fraud network that has operated for more than a decade.  

The indictment charges 11 individuals with conspiring “to orchestrate more than 1,000 sham marriages to fraudulently obtain immigration status for foreign nationals, primarily citizens of the People’s Republic of China.” Clients allegedly paid up to $100,000 for services; the organization is believed to have collected tens of millions of dollars from these illegal activities. 

Services allegedly include finding a willing U.S. citizen for the marriage. Citizens are used because the spouse of a citizen gets immediate relative status, and immigrant visas for immediate relatives are unlimited. The network coached clients on how to conceal the true nature of their relationship if they were interviewed, and manufactured wedding photographs, joint bank accounts and apartment leases to provide evidence that the spouses had bona fide marriages.   

This is why convincing paperwork alone does not necessarily establish that a marriage is genuine. 

A citizen filing a Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative for a spouse “must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the marriage was legally valid and bona fide at its inception and not entered for the purpose of evading the immigration laws.” 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services may interview the spouses and request additional evidence to determine whether their relationship is genuine. If fraud is suspected, the petition may be referred to the........

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