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Wednesday, Nov 4, 2009
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.
Don't want to give advice that later might come back to burn you, but I know several people who have married for citizenship and it went without a hitch. (Unfortunately gays and lesbians still have to do this if they want to stay with their partner). They were all friends, so knew a lot about each other, and weren't nervous or uncomfortable during the interview. They were all South American, by the way. I think how easy or difficult it goes will depend on what country the guy is from and how well you know him and how comfortable you can be during the interview.
My friends NEVER had to have sex with their purported mates. You need to remind yourself that lots of people get married who don't belong together - people who fight incessantly, never have sex, etc., and they all can get citizenship - it's not for immigration to decide how in love you are, just that the marriage is what both people want.
Sorry, but the advice for the LW to consider prostitution instead is a little silly.
People write in because they want attention. I seriously doubt if good or bad makes a difference.
The process for getting a green card through marriage takes years, about three to five. During this whole period the letter writer would have to pretend to her family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, everyone that this is a legitimate marriage. She'll have to live with this man during this whole period and get joint bank accounts and joint mortgages/leases, etc. Her sham husband will have the full legal and financial rights of a spouse, which will affect the letter writer's personal and business decisions and choices. This "sham" marriage will be a life-altering event, in personal, practical, and legal terms. And it might be even harder than a real marriage, because she'll have to do it without the emotional commitment and goodwill that a real marriage comes with and she'll have to do it with the constant possibility of being caught.
It would be one thing if she's planning to do it with someone whom she already knows well and has worked out the details (hey, but people are people, and often they don't stick to their agreements); that would be hard enough. But I should think if she's considering to go through this with a complete stranger, then it would be nearly impossible to pull off and still have a normal life.
You're considering breaking a serious federal law that is in the middle of very volitile, emotional conflict now that cause leaders to react more strongly than usual. The party in power is determined to show how strong they are against illegal immigration and threats to Homeland Security from illegals and would slap you in prison for the rest of your life just for the PR. Remember that the new Homeland Security laws take away a LOT of civil rights and give the governement much more leeway in tapping your phone without a warrent, holding you without charging you, and not letting you see a lawyer. This is post 9-11 and messing with illegals puts you in the realm of Homeland Security where there are no civil rights. Everyone is wound tight scared of another attack and any transgression could be considered an act of treason.
I bet most people who were able to pull off this scam are actually very few in number and did it BEFORE 9/11. Surely y'all have cases in your city similar to those I'm reading about in Virginia, cases of simple paperwork errors that pre-9/11 would have been straightened out, now are being used to deport aliens. There's a case here of a wife of a citizen who's lived here for years new being deported because of a paperwork error. And I read in the NY Times about a very well-loved business owner who is in Federal jail awaiting deportation because the ruling calling him a policial victim was changed due to a new "Homeland Security" policy. And a woman in federal jail for decades 'cause she helped aliens get driver's liscenses. Hello, who really wants to see what Rumsfeld would do to you for messing with federal immigration law, as volitile as that issue is right now? They'd probably love making an example of you.
As I said the couples I've known were grilled with tons of details you couldn't plan for ahead of time or know just 'cause you're freinds. What does he sleep in? What color is your comforter? You can't plan for all the questions and they ask you seperately so they can catch errors and then they'll come to your house to check. Think of all the truely intimate but mundane things you know about a lover you live with (mint or regular floss?, butter or margerine?) and how even your closest friends don't know. They asked me questions too to see if I'd observed details in the home that a couple would leave about. I don't believe that many people ever pulled it off and particularly not after 9/11.
I'm not getting into whether knowing real lovers who eventually divorced is justification for breaking federal law; that 2 wrongs justify a right situational ethics is below consideration. Lots of criminals love to debate if what they did is justified 'cause of some injury or transgression, but it's just another scam, justifying law-breaking.
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