Thread: U.S. approved thousands of child bride requests, lives ruined enabling forced marriag

U.S. approved thousands of child bride requests, lives ruined

The data raises questions about whether the immigration system may be enabling forced marriage.



Naila Amin, 26, looks out from a classroom window at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York on Feb. 2, 2016.Kathy Kmonicek / AP

Jan. 11, 2019, 8:09 AM EST / Updated Jan. 11, 2019, 8:14 AM EST
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Thousands of requests by men to bring in child and adolescent brides to live in the United States were approved over the past decade, according to government data obtained by The Associated Press. In one case, a 49-year-old man applied for admission for a 15-year-old girl.

The approvals are legal: The Immigration and Nationality Act does not set minimum age requirements. And in weighing petitions for spouses or fiancees, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services goes by whether the marriage is legal in the home country and then whether the marriage would be legal in the state where the petitioner lives.

But the data raises questions about whether the immigration system may be enabling forced marriage and about how U.S. laws may be compounding the problem despite efforts to limit child and forced marriage. Marriage between adults and minors is not uncommon in the United States, and most states allow children to marry with some restrictions.

There were more than 5,000 cases of adults petitioning on behalf of minors and nearly 3,000 examples of minors seeking to bring in older spouses or fiances, according to the data requested by the Senate Homeland Security Committee in 2017 and compiled into a report.
Some victims of forced marriage say the lure of a U.S. passport combined with lax U.S. marriage laws are partly fueling the petitions.
"My passport ruined my life," said Naila Amin, a dual citizen from Pakistan who grew up in New York City.
She was forcibly married at 13 in Pakistan and applied for papers for her 26-year-old husband to come to the country.
"People die to come to America," she said. "I was a passport to him. They all wanted him here, and that was the way to do it."
Amin, now 29, said she was betrothed to her first cousin Tariq when she was just 8 and he was 21. The petition was eventually terminated after she ran away. She said the ordeal cost her a childhood. She was in and out of foster care and group homes, and it took a while to get her life on track.
"I was a child. I want to know: Why weren't any red flags raised? Whoever was processing this application, they don't look at it? They don't think?" Amin asked.
There is a two-step process for obtaining U.S. immigration visas and green cards. Petitions are first considered by USCIS. If granted, they must be approved by the State Department. Overall, there were 3.5 million petitions received from budget years 2007 through 2017.
Over that period, there were 5,556 approvals for those seeking to bring minor spouses or fiancees, and 2,926 approvals by minors seeking to bring in older spouses, according to the data. Additionally, there were 204 for minors by minors. Petitions can be filed by U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
"It indicates a problem. It indicates a loophole that we need to close," Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told the AP.
In nearly all the cases, the girls were the younger person in the relationship. In 149 instances, the adult was older than 40, and in 28 cases the adult was over 50, the committee found. Among the examples: In 2011, immigration officials approved a 14-year-old's petition for a 48-year-old spouse in Jamaica. A petition from a 71-year-old man was approved in 2013 for his 17-year-old wife in Guatemala.
There are no nationwide statistics on child marriage, but data from a few states suggests it is far from rare. State laws generally set 18 as the minimum age for marriage, yet every state allows exceptions. Most states let 16- and 17-year-olds marry if they have parental consent, and several states — including New York, Virginia and Maryland — allow children under 16 to marry with court permission.
Fraidy Reiss, who campaigns against coerced marriage as head of a group called Unchained at Last, researched data from her home state of New Jersey. She determined that nearly 4,000 minors, mostly girls, were married in the state from 1995 to 2012, including 178 who were under 15.
"This is a problem both domestically and in terms of immigration," she said.
Reiss — who says she was forced into an abusive marriage by her Orthodox Jewish family when she was 19 — said that often cases of child marriage via parental consent involve coercion, with a girl forced to marry against her will.
"They are subjected to a lifetime of domestic servitude and rape," she said. "And the government is not only complicit; they're stamping this and saying: Go ahead."
The data was requested in 2017 by Johnson and then-Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, the committee's top Democrat. Johnson said it took a year to get the information, showing there needs to be a better system to track and vet the petitions.
"Our immigration system may unintentionally shield the abuse of women and children," the senators said in the letter.
USCIS didn't know how many of the approvals were granted by the State Department, but overall only about 2.6 percent of spousal or fiancee claims are rejected.
Separately, the data show some 4,749 minor spouses or fiancees received green cards to live in the U.S. over that same 10-year period.
The head of USCIS, L. Francis Cissna, said in a letter to the committee that their request had raised questions and discussion within the agency on what it can do to prevent forced minor marriages. The agency noticed some issues in how the data was collected and has resolved them. Officials also created a flagging system that requires verification of the birthdate whenever a minor is detected.
The country where most requests came from was Mexico, followed by Pakistan, Jordan, the Dominican Republic and Yemen. Middle Eastern nationals had the highest percentage of overall approved petitions.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/imm...n8W3S_2sRd3q4Q

The rule should be very simple. No minor under the age of 18 can migrate to the United States for any reason, except with their parents and must leave with the parents at the end of the visa or green card.

Wow, can't believe our country not only condoned this, but actually participated in it!

Informed American Citizen

Child Marriage Staff Report

https://www.scribd.com/…/397289…/Child-Marriage-Staff-Report

Good. Of course Republicans would be on this. Thank you. Now do something to end it. No minor under the age of 18 can enter the US without verified parents on verified documents and must leave with the parents at the end of the visa or green card. Period.

Rush Limbaugh Radio

U.S. APPROVES Requests To Bring Over 5,000 CHILD BRIDES To America…Mostly From Middle Eastern Countries

Rush Limbaugh Radio shared a link.



100percentfedup.com

U.S. APPROVES Requests To Bring Over 5,000 CHILD BRIDES To America…Mostly From Middle Eastern Countries *…

U.S. APPROVES Requests To Bring Over 5,000 CHILD BRIDES To America…Mostly From Middle Eastern Countries

Jan 12, 2019

Most Americans are shocked to hear that full-grown men are marrying 8-year-old girls in foreign countries. A new report by that was just released about child brides being imported to America, is equally shocking.

According to the AP, the United States government has approved requests for over 5,000 child or adolescent brides to be brought to the U.S., enabling them to be forced into marriage.

According to the Daily Caller, U.S. immigration authorities approved 5,556 requests from older men to bring child or adolescent wives to the U.S. and approved 2,926 requests from young girls to bring their older husbands to the U.S. between the budget years of 2007 and 2017. The data also revealed 4,749 minor spouses or fiancees had received U.S. green cards in that time period.
The highest percentage of requests came from Middle Eastern nationals, with the majority of requests coming from Mexico, followed by Pakistan, Jordan, the Dominican Republic, and Yemen.

According to the AP- There is a two-step process for obtaining U.S. immigration visas and green cards. Petitions are first considered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS. If granted, they must be approved by the State Department. Overall, there were 3.5 million petitions received from budget years 2007 through 2017.
Over that period, there were 5,556 approvals for those seeking to bring minor spouses or fiancees, and 2,926 approvals by minors seeking to bring in older spouses, according to the data. Additionally, there were 204 for minors by minors. Petitions can be filed by U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
Trending: U.S. APPROVES Requests To Bring Over 5,000 CHILD BRIDES To America…Mostly From Middle Eastern Countries
“It indicates a problem. It indicates a loophole that we need to close,” Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told the AP.
In nearly all the cases, the girls were the younger person in the relationship. In 149 instances, the adult was older than 40, and in 28 cases the adult was over 50, the committee found. In 2011, immigration officials approved a 14-year-old’s petition for a 48-year-old spouse in Jamaica. A petition from a 71-year-old man was approved in 2013 for his 17-year-old wife in Guatemala.
There are no nationwide statistics on child marriage, but data from a few states suggests it is far from rare. State laws generally set 18 as the minimum age for marriage, yet every state allows exceptions. Most states let 16- and 17-year-olds marry if they have parental consent, and several states — including New York, Virginia and Maryland — allow children under 16 to marry with court permission.

The requests and their approvals were apparently legal, according to government data obtained by The Associate Press, due to the fact that the Immigration and Nationality Act does not limit the age of spouses. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services also approves or denies requests based on whether the marriage is legal in the home country and the state of the applicant.
In the cases where adolescent girls applied for their older husbands to come over, immigration officials fear they are being forced to do so and used to gain citizenship for the men who married them.
Naila Amin is a dual citizen of Pakistan and the U.S. Amin’s parents arranged for her to marry a Pakistani man in his 20s when she was just 8 years old.
Her parents reportedly flew her to Pakistan when she was 13 to be married to the man, then flew her back to the U.S. and forced her to apply for her husband to come to the U.S.

Naila

Amin Amin, who endured beatings and sexual assault from the man, said she was “a lottery ticket” for the man’s citizenship.
“People die to come to America. I was a passport to him. They all wanted him here, and that was the way to do it,” Amin told AP.

Amin ran away from her family, and the petition for the man who she was forced to marry fell through. She since reconciled with her family, but she spent years in and out of foster care before she could rebuild her life. Amin said she has a hard time understanding how her situation did not alarm immigration officials.



Youtube Video https://youtu.be/LeqL54FLhUI

Here is just a part of Amin’s story, that can be found on the Muslim Leadership Alliance website:
The foster care system had no idea on what to do with a child like me. There was a lot of turmoil. They were not culturally competent enough. I was probably the first case they ever had of a child bride. There was also a lack of therapists who really understand me. Most importantly there was a lack of resources. They could not even find me one Muslim foster home. They did not even know what halal food was. I remember eating pizza for 3 months straight in the beginning.
I was in these group homes with girls of every ethnicity except for someone like me. Everyone had similar issues, except me. I was the only one there because I had cultural differences with my parents and was there for being too “Americanized.” No one knew how I felt or what was going through my head.
So I ran away from one of the many group homes I was in and I actually went to my parents’ house. I hid out there until my parents got me a ticket to go to Pakistan. I figured I will stay there until I turn 18 and then come back. Then the state won’t have any jurisdiction over me. I totally hated the group home life.
I left for Pakistan in October 2004 while I was still a ward of the state. Three months later came January 5, 2005, the day a part of me died forever. I was sent to go live with my husband Tariq that day. My dad gave him his 15 year old daughter to rape and beat. The first night Tariq entered our bedroom I wanted to disappear or have the ground open up and swallow me. He tried to touch me but I was not having it. I remember making a barrier in the bed. It was a very uncomfortable night.
By the second day of our wedding, my parents as well as his knew we were not happy. I begged my mother to take me home. She said she had no say. I tried running away several times, but always failed. I got the ultimate beat downs after I was found, always in front of the whole family. My mother would watch my husband and my father kick me together in the head, yet her screams were never heard.
After one of many attempts to escape, my uncle brought me back and said it will all be okay. I told him: if something happens to me, call Child Protective Services and let them know that I was here and killed in the name of an honor killing, so that they could stop looking for me as a missing person in the U.S.
Luckily, when I returned with my uncle, my husband blamed him for eloping with me. My uncle was furious and called CPS. I was left in Pakistan by myself, while my husband had my passport and my parents returned to the U.S. My mother was arrested, and eventually I was brought back here.
I am extremely lucky to be alive.

https://100percentfedup.com/u-s-appr...ern-countries/

IS THAT IMMORAL TOO CHUCK AND NANCY PELOSI???

OR DO YOU CONDONE THIS TOO?








WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE! YOU ARE A DISGRACE!

Requests to bring in child brides OK'd; legal under US laws

By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Jan 11, 2019, 9:39 PM ET
The Associated Press


Thousands of requests by men to bring in child and adolescent brides to live in the United States were approved over the past decade, according to government data obtained by The Associated Press. In one case, a 49-year-old man applied for admission for a 15-year-old girl.
The approvals are legal: The Immigration and Nationality Act does not set minimum age requirements for the person making the request or for that person's spouse or fiancee. By contrast, to bring in a parent from overseas, a petitioner has to be at least 21 years old.
And in weighing petitions, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services goes by whether the marriage is legal in the spouse or fiancee's home country and then whether the marriage would be legal in the state where the petitioner lives.
The data raises questions about whether the immigration system may be enabling forced marriage and about how U.S. laws may be compounding the problem despite efforts to limit child and forced marriage. Marriage between adults and minors is not uncommon in the U.S., and most states allow children to marry with some restrictions.
There were more than 5,000 cases of adults petitioning on behalf of minors and nearly 3,000 examples of minors seeking to bring in older spouses or fiances, according to the data requested by the Senate Homeland Security Committee in 2017 and compiled into a report. The approval is the first of a two-step visa process, and USCIS said it has taken steps to better flag and vet the petitions.
Some victims of forced marriage say the lure of a U.S. passport combined with lax U.S. marriage laws are partly fueling the petitions.
"My sunshine was snatched from my life," said Naila Amin, a dual citizen born in Pakistan who grew up in New York City.
She was forcibly married at 13 in Pakistan and later applied for papers for her 26-year-old husband to come to the U.S. at the behest of her family. She was forced for a time to live in Pakistan with him, where, she said, she was sexually assaulted and beaten. She came back to the U.S., and he was to follow.
"People die to come to America," she said. "I was a passport to him. They all wanted him here, and that was the way to do it."
Amin, now 29, said she was betrothed when she was just 8 and he was 21. The petition she submitted after her marriage was approved by immigration officials, but he never came to the country, in part because she ran away from home. She said the ordeal cost her a childhood. She was in and out of foster care and group homes, and it took a while to get her life on track.
"I was a child. I want to know: Why weren't any red flags raised? Whoever was processing this application, they don't look at it? They don't think?" Amin asked.
Fraidy Reiss, who campaigns against coerced marriage as head of a group called Unchained at Last, has scores of similar anecdotes: An underage girl was brought to the U.S. as part of an arranged marriage and eventually was dropped at the airport and left there after she miscarried. Another was married at 16 overseas and was forced to bring an abusive husband.
Reiss said immigration status is often held over their heads as a tool to keep them in line.
There is a two-step process for obtaining U.S. immigration visas and green cards. Petitions are first considered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS. If granted, they must be approved by the State Department. Overall, there were 3.5 million petitions received from budget years 2007 through 2017.
Over that period, there were 5,556 approvals for those seeking to bring minor spouses or fiancees, and 2,926 approvals by minors seeking to bring in older spouses, according to the data. Additionally, there were 204 for minors by minors. Petitions can be filed by U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
"It indicates a problem. It indicates a loophole that we need to close," Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told the AP.
In nearly all the cases, the girls were the younger person in the relationship. In 149 instances, the adult was older than 40, and in 28 cases the adult was over 50, the committee found. In 2011, immigration officials approved a 14-year-old's petition for a 48-year-old spouse in Jamaica. A petition from a 71-year-old man was approved in 2013 for his 17-year-old wife in Guatemala.
There are no nationwide statistics on child marriage, but data from a few states suggests it is far from rare. State laws generally set 18 as the minimum age for marriage, yet every state allows exceptions. Most states let 16- and 17-year-olds marry if they have parental consent, and several states — including New York, Virginia and Maryland — allow children under 16 to marry with court permission.
Reiss researched data from her home state, New Jersey. She determined that nearly 4,000 minors, mostly girls, were married in the state from 1995 to 2012, including 178 who were under 15.
"This is a problem both domestically and in terms of immigration," she said.
Reiss, who says she was forced into an abusive marriage by her Orthodox Jewish family when she was 19, said that often cases of child marriage via parental consent involve coercion, with a girl forced to marry against her will.
"They are subjected to a lifetime of domestic servitude and rape," she said. "And the government is not only complicit; they're stamping this and saying: Go ahead."
The data was requested in 2017 by Johnson and then-Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, the committee's top Democrat. Johnson said it took a year to get the information, showing there needs to be a better system to track and vet the petitions.
"Our immigration system may unintentionally shield the abuse of women and children," the senators said in the letter requesting the information.
USCIS didn't know how many of the approvals were granted by the State Department, but overall only about 2.6 percent of spousal or fiance claims are rejected. A State Department representative said the department is committed to protecting the rights of children and combatting forced marriage.
Separately, the data show some 4,749 minor spouses or fiancees received green cards to live in the U.S. over that 10-year period.
The head of USCIS said in a letter to the committee that its request had raised questions and discussion within the agency on what it can do to prevent forced minor marriages.
USCIS created a flagging system when a minor spouse or fiance is detected. After the initial flag, it is sent to a special unit that verifies the age and relationship are correct before the petition is accepted. Another flag requires verification of the birthdate whenever a minor is detected. Officials note an approval doesn't mean the visa is immediately issued.
"USCIS has taken steps to improve data integrity and has implemented a range of solutions that require the verification of a birthdate whenever a minor spouse or fiance is detected," USCIS spokesman Michael Bars said. "Ultimately, it is up to Congress to bring more certainty and legal clarity to this process for both petitioners and USCIS officers."
The country where most requests came from was Mexico, followed by Pakistan, Jordan, the Dominican Republic and Yemen. Middle Eastern nationals had the highest percentage of overall approved petitions.
———
Follow Colleen Long on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ctlong1

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US approved thousands of child bride requests