For those of us who believe in the sanctity of certain institutions — like matrimony and children — August 12 was a dark day. On the former front, the Department of Justice announced 11 defendants had been charged in connection with a “decade-long nationwide marriage fraud scheme” involving “more than 1,000 sham marriages”. With respect to the latter, the Department of State (DOS) issued a fact sheet on its new “Task Force to End Birth Tourism”. Is nothing sacred? Apparently not in this jaded age, when even former NFL players are getting deported.
$100K for a Green Card?
The DOJ announcement, dated August 12, begins:
A two-count indictment was unsealed today charging 11 individuals with conspiring, over the course of more than a decade, 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. Some individuals paid up to $100,000 per sham marriage, according to the indictment.
While all of the named defendants in that case (who enjoy a presumption of innocence until proven guilty) are residents of New York — where everything from hot dogs to hotel rooms are pricier than usual — $100,000 for a simple sham marriage seems exorbitant; when I worked for the former INS in California in the 1990s, aliens eager for a quicky green card could get one for a fraction of that.
That said, some things never change, and given the inherently intimate nature of wedlock, marriage fraud is one of the oldest immigration fraud schemes out there, if not the original one.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member