We are currently besieged on both our southern and northern borders by armies of illegal migrants who waltz into the country knowing that Joe Biden will have them released unsupervised into the interior. At least for the moment, the Democrats haven't figured out a way to immediately give them all voting rights and permanent residency status, so they may be waiting for many years in legal limbo. But some of the "new arrivals" (as President Biden likes to call them now) are more impatient and they look for methods to become more quickly documented in some fashion. That's where Marcialito Biol Benitez of Los Angeles came in. His California operation recruited American citizens to take the migrants, mostly from the Philippines, down the wedding aisle and marry them so they could obtain green cards. That came to an end this week when Benitez was convicted in federal court in Boston. But how many more like him are out there? (NY Post)

Four fraudsters caught operating a large-scale marriage fraud “agency” — setting up sham marriages to help over 600 migrants bypass immigration laws and obtain green cards — were sentenced this week for the scam in federal court in Boston.

The group of scammers, all Philippine nationals living in Los Angeles, were charged with marriage fraud and immigration document fraud for recruiting American citizens to marry the agency’s clients, staging “hundreds of sham marriages” in exchange for cash, federal prosecutors in Massachusetts said.

Authorities said that Marcialito Biol Benitez, 50, ran the so-called “agency” out of brick-and-mortar offices in Los Angeles and would rely on his co-conspirators to recruit Americans to wed the agency’s clients.

Benitez wasn't just printing up and handing out forged documents. He was running a full-service operation. They took out wedding announcements in newspapers, brought in "online officiants" to conduct the ceremonies (you can become an ordained minister through an online "ministry" for a small fee with no training), and hired photographers to provide wedding pictures in front of fake wedding decorations. The migrants were advised how to keep up the pretense of an actual marriage until their interviews with customs officials were complete and they had their green cards. Fake brides and grooms were recruited through a private network and paid for their "services." It was a very lucrative business.

Benitez's "clients" didn't need to sneak into the country over the border. They were brought to the United States openly for the specific purpose of marrying a citizen. They were almost all from the Philippines, so this wasn't part of the ongoing illegal migration crisis. But if he was getting away with this and profiting from it, you just know that some of the cartels have thought of the same scam. At least some of the migrants who can afford to pay the cartels thousands of dollars to smuggle them across the border can no doubt afford a fake wedding. Then, with a green card in their hands, they can conveniently "divorce" their new spouse later. Not all marriages work out, after all.

Fake weddings intended to thwart our immigration laws are some of the toughest crimes to detect and prosecute. That's particularly true when the participants go through such an elaborate ruse. Getting married isn't a crime. How are immigration officials to know who is seeking to perpetuate fraud and who has truly found the love of their life? We clearly don't have the time or resources to follow up on all of these weddings to find out how many of them later led to quick divorces. Even then, getting a divorce doesn't prove anything.

This is yet more proof that American citizenship is a very desirable commodity all around the world. Some people with the ability to do so will pay handsomely for the opportunity to take a shortcut and cheat the system. Whenever such an opportunity exists, someone will be coming along shortly to profit from it. This is yet another reason we need to seal the border and free up resources to more closely examine those coming to our country.