09/08/2021
The Victims of Marriage-Related Immigration Fraud Tell Their Stories
"The American victims of marriage-related immigration fraud have begun to tell their stories; how they went into a marriage with an alien, in good faith, and then found that the alien in question was not interested in the marriage per se but really was only seeking the status of a permanent resident alien (or green-card holder) that goes with such a marriage.
In many cases aliens make use of a provision in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) which permits aliens to “self-petition” for green card status, when they claim that their U.S. citizen spouse has abused them. That petition is filed with the U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, more specifically with its Vermont Regional Center where USCIS staffers sitting at their desks decide whether or not the claim is a valid one. Typically these cases are decided without any in-person interviews.
Routinely the alleged citizen abusers are not consulted about the matter, which USCIS regards as confidential, have no say in the ultimate decision, and are often severally hurt by the outcome, both emotionally and financially. Then the alien secures a green card as an “immediate relative” of the citizen to whom they are, routinely, no longer married.
USCIS/Vermont does not approach these situations like a divorce court would; it operates in secrecy and rarely, if ever, gives the alleged abuser, usually a citizen but sometimes a green-card holder, the right to be heard. The VAWA law provides a whole series of advantages to the aliens in these proceedings, among which is a very unusual provision that fraud of the part of the alien involved does not diminish the alien’s ability to obtain the green card.
Victims of Immigration Fraud, (VOIF), a small advocacy organization, has collected 23 case studies of immigration fraud, which follow. There are no names provided as the American victims usually do not want to see their names in print as “abusers.” And, given the privacy that VOIF has granted the citizens, it is only fair that the aliens’ names not be used either.
VOIF has, by definition, heard only one side of the story, and that is what is presented below, and it is perfectly possible in some cases that there may have been a bit of abuse on the part of one or more of the citizens as well. Neither VOIF nor CIS claims that everything said by all the victims is 100% accurate.
But what we do have is fascinating (and depressing) series of accounts of 23 U.S. citizens being hornswoggled by aliens pretending to love them. The stories are of 17 males and six female citizens being deceived by people from 18 different nations. A minority of the cases may also involve national security matters, like the Russian woman who tried marriage fraud on both a civilian and later a military officer (see cases # 15 and #16.). There were four cases involving two Russian women (the only multiples on the list), and two each for Brazil and China. The case summaries follow."
https://voif.org/cases
By David North
