Green-Card Marriage Scam Often Ignored

Green-card marriage scam often ignored
Chad Groening - OneNewsNow - 12/15/2008 9:40:00 AM

A former consular officer with the U.S. State Department says it's extremely rare that the federal government will revoke the green cards of individuals who have duped American citizens into fraudulent marriages.

David Seminara adjudicated thousands of marriage-based green-card applications while serving in the State Department. He recently wrote a background paper for the Center for Immigration Studies called "Hello, I Love You, Won't You Tell Me Your Name: Inside the Green Card Marriage Phenomenon."

Seminara says American citizens are sometimes the victims of unsavory individuals who marry them simply in order to obtain a green card. He recalls the experience of one woman who taped her Macedonian husband's telephone conversations.

"He was actually speaking to his real girlfriend...in Macedonian in which she did not understand the language," Seminara explains. "But she went to the trouble of recording the conversations and having a professional translator translate them -- and it was clear she had smoking-gun proof basically that this guy used her just for the green card."

But Seminara says despite this evidence, the government did not send the man packing.

"The Department of Homeland Security is afraid of giving a veto power to Americans," he says. "If they always believe the American, then Americans who got divorced could just very vindictively say, oh well, she was just in it for the green card. And if they just took the American's word for that, there would definitely be cases where the foreigner would lose their status basically unfairly."

Seminara, who served in Macedonia, Trinidad, and Hungary while with the State Department, says it is very unfortunate that often nothing happens when Americans who do get duped contact authorities.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Defa ... ?id=354240

See also "Inside the Green Card Marriage Phenomenon"
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-139499.html

The Cubans are notorious for marrying people for money in return of a greencard. It makes the news alot. They need to get rid of the marriage for a greencard. It causes many problems as they are allowed to stay and appeal and have kids with their spouse. There has been a case in Broward County like that involving a Haitian.
When I was at the immigration building earlier this year I seen many of those marry for greencard couples going for their interviews. It was a rather humerous ordeal. You would see them hanging all over each other and almost making out in line. Then you would see them with around 4 photo albums of their pictures, wedding pictures, etc. Then you would have the legit marriages and they would stand nornally in line and talk and would have 1 or 2 photo albums.

My marriage is real as anybody who knows me can testify to. However, I can not tell you how disappointed I was when NOBODY ever checked on us. Was I looking forward to somebody knocking in the dead of the night and interrogating us with personal questions? Of course not, however, I did expect that they would. We thought that maybe the reason why nobody knocked on our front door was the fact that our front door for the first two years of our marriage was literally located facing the front door of our local DHS office. This was purely coincidence lol. We thought they probably had seen us coming and going as a family, Hubby carrying the laundry for me to the laundry room ect. Heck, those working late may have even heard those wonderful arguments that only newlyweds can have. You know, the piss ant ones about who gets the top drawer for socks that turns into world war three.

My personal opinion, having gone through this is simple. IF the marriage ends for any reason other than death of a spouse, within the first 5 years, the sponsored partner in he marriage gets 6 months to close up shop then they have to leave. No questions asked, no crying battered spouse ect. The courts will decide, if children are involved, which parent gets custody. The couple will know the risks they take when they apply for a fiance or spousal visa.

Cayla I think that they also can tell by from where you came from. There are people from some countries who marry for greencards more than others and that is well known. When I was sponsored my lawyer told me to prep for the questions they ask both parties separately when we go for the interview. I wasn't asked any questions at all. There are some Russians I know of who had immigration agents check to make they were living together as they were suspicious of their marriage.