UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, June 21, 1995
5B
MARRIAGE U. S. citizenship motivates couples to exchange vows
Continued from Page 1B.
There are numerous qualifications, forms and filing fees. Then there are interviews that determine whether an immigrant is worthy of being a U.S. citizen. Health, criminal records, financial status and intent are examined closely.
Additionally, limits are placed on the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States. Only 675,000 visas, which allow an alien to stay legally in the United States, are granted for any fiscal year. But immigrants who marry U.S. citizens don't fall under this quota.
After a couple is married, Heston said, the INS determines whether the marriage is viable. He said a viable marriage had three elements:
The marriage license must be legal.
The marriage can't have been entered into for any type of gain.
The marriage must be consummated. In other words, the couple must have sex. Heston said, though, that investigators do not ask questions regarding the couple's sex life.
The INS does not give a green card to an immigrant immediately after marriage. Heston said both immigrant and citizen must successfully convince the INS that they intend to remain married.
"If someone tells us that it was a marriage made in heaven, and they got married just because they love each other, that's not a sufficient
reason for us to approve of the union," he said. "You could say that all day long, but you've got to be able to back it up."
Heston said the couple must back up its reasons for marriage by answering intense personal questions. Investigators split the couple up and ask questions such as, "What's the color of your drapes in your bedroom?" or "What color is the negligee that your wife wears to bed?" and "What does your husband's family like to do for the holidays?" He said the answers must be the same from both people. Once
Once the INS is satisfied that the marriage is not fraudulent, the immigrant receives a plastic card traditionally
she met Harry, one of her students.
After he finished his courses, he visited his family in Honduras. Harry then came back to the learning center to work, and he and Miriam started dating.
One month later they were married.
"I probably would have waited, but there was no time to spare," she said.
Fraudulent Facts:
"His student visa was going to expire and he wanted to stay in the U.S," Miriam explained. "He asked me to marry him, and well, I said ves.
Miriam said that they had kept the marriage a secret for a while, be-
known as a "green card." Actually, the cards are now blue or white and are proof of lawful residence in the U.S.
*By law, a marriage is fraudulent if it was entered into for the sole purpose of receiving a green card.*
Students are not the only ones marrying for green cards. Some teachers lend a helping hand.
Out of almost 2,800 greed card applications,194 were denied last year because of fraud.
√ Defrauding the INS is a federal offense. The citizen helping the immigrant can end up with a felony on their permanent record, and the alien can be sent home.
$ \checkmark $ Students are more likely to attempt to defraud the INS because foreign students' visas expire after graduation.
Miriam was a teacher at learning center in Fort Worth, Texas, when
cause she had felt that some people would raise unneeded questions about their arrangement.
Harry received his green card two months later, Miriam said, and the process was a bit unnerving.
"Dealing with the INS was a real pain," Miriam said. "We had to have everything exactly as they wanted it. They asked detailed questions to determine whether we were legitimately married. "I was extremely nervous about it," he said.
Miriam may have thought dealing with the INS was painful in 1985, when she married Harry, but the process became even more complicated with the passage of the Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendment of 1986.
The amendment was passed to deter a foreigner from marrying a U.S. citizen in order to ease the immigration process. Instead of receiving a green card and becoming a permanent resident after marriage, immigrants are subjected to a two-year review on their residence.
This means that a foreign spouse can legally work and live in the United States, but the immigrant
and his or her spouse must apply to the INS within 90 days after their two-year anniversary to remove the conditional status.
After applying, an interview is set up to determine whether permanent residence will be granted.
Heston said the amendment had made a big difference in the amount of fraudulent marriages.
"Before the amendment, an immigrant thought that if he got by one interview, he was home-free," he said. "The fraud rate was unbelievably high."
Heston said the rate of fraudulent marriages prior to the amendment was 16 percent for Kansas and Missouri.
That rate has been cut to 7 percent, he said.
Although Miriam married Harry to help him remain in the country, she insisted they didn't scam the system because they cared for each other and staved married for eight years.
Miriam said that although she loved Harry, there were times that she questioned his intentions for marrying her.
They divorced in 1993 at Harry's request.
"I know we cared for each other," Miriam reflected. "But I still wonder if he married me for the sole purpose of getting a green card."
--courses at Washburn University. After paying out-of-state tuition he had financial difficulties and was quickly running out of money.
Howard Eisberg, a Kansas City attorney who specializes in immigration law, said there were many definitions of love, and that relationships could be based on a number of things.
The nature of a relationship isn't always clear.
"Let's just say that two people care for each other and have a sexual aspect to their relationship. They may live together for a while and then break up after three or four months," he said. "So the immigrant gets a green card out of it. Who's to say that's committing fraud?"
Eisberg said that by law a marriage was fraudulent if it was entered into for the sole purpose of receiving a green card.
"Before I take a case, I ask them to tell me the truth," he said. "I can't say that I've never been fooled, but I usually have a pretty good sense of who's telling me the truth."
He said he had had some immigrants come through his office who obviously were not obeying the law.
The difficult cases for the INS, Eisberg said, didn't involve the obvious phony marriages where money changed hands and the couple didn't live together. The troublesome part is when two people look like they don't belong together but actually have a legitimate relationship, he said.
"The INS uses stereotypes for people and that can be dangerous," he said. "The couple might, at first, look funny together, but they may have a genuine relationship. The INS shouldn't jump to conclusions, because it makes life more difficult for those people in good-faith relationships."
"The INS is suspicious of every marriage," Eisberg said. "Their perception is that there are more people who do this than there really are."
Immigrants are often intimidated by the rigorous process of proving that they are in a legitimate relationship, he said.
The INS isn't suspicious of every relationship, Heston said, but investigators routinely look for signs of a fraudulent marriage. The stereotypes the INS applies to applicants are actually profiles of certain types of individuals who commonly attempt to commit fraud, he said.
"There is a set of criteria that is used to develop a fraud profile for different countries," he said. "This is very similar to the FBI's system of profiling serious criminals."
Heston said the most commonly used profiles were of men from Nigeria and the Middle East.
He would not disclose the profiles, he said, because the INS doesn't want potential law-breakers to know what investigators are looking for.
But investigators do not wait for a couple to admit that they are breaking the law. Instead, the law goes looking for them.
"We'll show up at their doorstep and look at the way they live," Heston said. "We'll subpoena their relatives, neighbors, friends and employers. It doesn't take long for the truth to come out once we visit these people."
--courses at Washburn University. After paying out-of-state tuition he had financial difficulties and was quickly running out of money.
Maybe the truth in some cases is that these marriages are unions of convenience and love.
Jack left France in 1992 and headed for Topeka to begin his
Take the case of Jack and Jesse.
Jack could only work part-time on campus because of restrictions placed on his student visa. He said he could not find a job that supported him, so he gave up.
"I had to withdraw from school, because I couldn't pay the bills by working part-time," Jack said. "I tried to find ways to get in-state tuition, but I couldn't manage that either."
He was in the country illegally, because his visa expired when he left school.
Jack found a job as a roofer, which started a succession of problems that would plague his stay in the United States.
Eventually he met Jesse, a U.S. citizen. After dating for a few months, Jack moved in with her.
His employer was willing to break the law until Jack fell off a roof and broke his elbow.
Then his boss called the INS, because he didn't know how to handle workers' compensation for an illegal alien.
"He got freaked out because he was afraid he'd get into trouble once I received medical help." Jack said "He told me that he called the INS and that I had to call them to explain my situation."
any solution to the problem
The only choice left for him, Jack said, was to get married so that he could stay in the country.
Jesse was frightened at the prospect of marriage. She said Jack had asked her to marry him before, but she had sternly rejected his proposals.
But she changed her mind. They were married six days after the accident.
"I wasn't willing to face the idea that he would be sent back to France and would never be able to become a citizen." Jesse said. "We didn't have any choice."
Now they must face the INS, and they aren't looking forward to the interview.
"It's just so scary," she said.
Jack and Jesse have reason to be scared. There are severe penalties for agreeing to a fraudulent marriage.
"The INS makes us very nervous." Jesse said. "We're worried about the details that they can ask us about, like Jack working illegally and the other stuff that they can get on us.
---
Defrauding the INS is a federal offense. Heston said students don't think of the consequences of entering a fraudulent marriage, because they think they're helping someone out.
"Most of the time students don't have any concept of what they're doing," he said. "What they should realize is that a felony conviction follows you forever, and that's pretty heavy stuff when your trying to find a job."
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Services uses three guidelines to determine whether a marriage is viable. The guidelines are:
Jack became frightened.
The worst that can happen to an alien is that she or he is sent home.
The marriage license must be legal.
The marriage must be consummated.
Jesse said that she wanted to help Jack but that there didn't seem to be
He spent his days waiting for the INS to knock on his door and haul him back to France.
✓ The marriage can't have been entered into for anytype of gain.
When Jack called the INS and explained that he was trying to save money so that he could go back to school, the INS was not very sympathetic.
In addition, INS investigators ask couples intense questions, such as, "What color is the negligee that your wife wear to bed?" The answer must be the same for both persons.
Heston said.
"Don't be fooled by your good intentions," Hesston warned. "It's just not worth it."
He said he would rather see felons that committed serious crimes put behind bars than a harmless citizen who thought that they were helping someone.
But that doesn't mean that marriage isn't in their future.
"Marrying Maude so that she can get a green card wouldn't be a bad reason to get married," Jason said. "But I can see her staying here for a long time, and I would hate to force the issue."
Maude said she wanted to attend KU and had been waiting for an answer to her application. She'd like to get a student visa and study physical therapy.
If Jason asks her to marry him, Maude said she would say yes, but not just because she wants a green card.
She said there wasn't a doubt in her mind that they cared deeply for each other.
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