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Read other letters about this article
I married a foreigner I loved so he could get a green card so we
could live together. I would not have married him if we could have
just lived together, but because he was not an American I decided
to marry him to get him into the country.
A few years later, our marriage was a hollowed-out version of its former self. We were no longer sleeping together, no longer communicating. Should I have gone to the INS at that point and told them to revoke my husband's green card because we no longer had a "real" marriage?
Most of the folks I know who are still married are in it for the
money. Many long married couples no longer have sex (with each
other), some no longer speak, but they may continue to co-habit and
pool their finances because it's just too damn expensive and
bothersome to split up. Are these sham marriages? Do we need to
police everyone's sex lives to make sure they're not faking a
"real" marriage?
I say remove all the tax and other advantages to marriage and
therefore the incentives for lying. Have a normal immigration
policy that doesn't depend on policing people's sex lives.
Otherwise, it seems to me there is no difference between someone
who marries a foreigner for money and someone who stays in a
sexless, loveless marriage for money.
