'I paid my husband to marry me, and it's pretty common'

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This was published 5 years ago

'I paid my husband to marry me, and it's pretty common'

By Ebony Bowden

New York: The bride stands in the middle of the crowded Manhattan bar with her new husband, beaming in a white pant suit as friends and family gather to wish the newlyweds well.

To outsiders, this appears just like a normal New York wedding. In fact it's a carefully orchestrated lie. This is a sham marriage and the bride has paid the groom $US10,000 [$13,000] to put a ring on her finger.

Faced with an anti-immigration Trump administration, a growing number of immigrants are evading the risk of deportation by using fraud marriages. It's a crime the United States government is desperate to combat. Their weapon is a set of questions so difficult that even legitimate couples fail them.

A couple, who do not want to be identified, celebrates after their wedding for immigration purposes in New York.

A couple, who do not want to be identified, celebrates after their wedding for immigration purposes in New York.

US citizens face up to five years' imprisonment and maximum fines of $US250,000 if convicted, while the foreign spouse is deported. But many immigrants say marriage is their only pathway to residency in the country, especially those who have been illegally living there for years.

Cynthia*, the bride in the Manhattan bar, decided to marry her friend Moses* after spending five years travelling between her native Britain and New York, moving every three months to avoid overstaying her tourist visa while trying to build a business as a fashion designer.

“I was trying to get a business visa, an artist visa, but it was a long process and if you were accepted it only lasts up to two years,” she said.

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“It was super-stressful because you’d get your life sorted in the last few weeks and then you’d have to go home again, so it wasn’t worth it in the end,” she said.

After seeing people around her in a similar position marry their friends, Cynthia decided it was her only option. After months of asking Moses, he finally agreed to help.

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“A lot of my friends had done it and they were like, ‘It’s totally fine, it’s the easiest option’,” Cynthia said. “I was like 'OK, if they’re telling me, they’re clever people, so it’s obviously doable'.”

“It’s insanely common,” Moses added. “It seems like every fourth person I speak to is like, ‘I know someone who’s done that’ or ‘Someone asked me to marry them’.”

The pair married at New York City Hall earlier this year. A photographer was on hand to capture the moment.

Most couples pore over their wedding photos as mementos of their special day. For this couple, they are evidence.

But with the wedding behind them, Cynthia and Moses face an even bigger test: an interview with an immigration agent. Here, couples are peppered with questions designed to catch people trying to game the system.

“What side of the bed does your spouse sleep on?”

“Do they have any allergies?”

“What night is the rubbish collected?”

“What words did your spouse use when they proposed to you?”

If couples get more than three questions wrong, they’re called back for a second session known as the “Stokes interview”, where they are separated and face hours of interrogation.

Spouses are also asked to provide evidence of shared bank accounts, pictures of holidays together, years of text messages and lease agreements with both their names.

Immigration lawyer Michael Musa-Obregon said he has seen even legitimate married couples fail the test under a “Russian roulette of questioning” which has become even tougher under the Trump administration.

Newlyweds have to prove their marriage is genuine.

Newlyweds have to prove their marriage is genuine.Credit: TongRo Image Stock RF

Musa-Obregon said in his own practice he has seen immigrants – particularly those without documents – become “more proactive”  because of harsher enforcement methods used by the Department of Homeland Security.

“More people feel that. They’ve always been at risk, but more people now are afraid and motivated to seek out whatever legal recourse.”

Marriage to a US citizen is sometimes described as the “golden loophole”; a path to permanent residency in the States even if an immigrant was previously living in the country illegally.

Several illegal immigrants living in New York, either recently married or about to be married, told The Sunday Age they did so out of fear that the Trump administration would refuse their union because they overstayed their visas.

One of those people is Esteban*, a German-Venezuelan who came to New York on a three-month tourist visa in 2012 and has been living in the city illegally ever since. Slowly, he built a life in the US and put his entire savings into a bar.

Overstaying his tourist visa meant he was ineligible for any visa, so he couldn’t leave the country when his father in Venezuela had a stroke in December.

“My lawyer said your only option is getting married. I was like, ‘Do I want to stay in America for that long?’ Year after year, you realise: ‘I’ve been here for six years'. I own a bar, I want to open a second bar. I have to get married, I have no other option.

“I could tell you 10 people right now who’ve done it. Everybody’s doing it."

After his father’s stroke, a close female friend offered to marry him for $US10,000. Esteban must now wait two years until he is eligible to apply for a green card. In the meantime, he has a permanent resident's card but must pass the interview with his new wife.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) considers marriage fraud a severe national security risk and is committing a growing amount of resources to combat it.

The US government has established 29 taskforces across the country to combat fraud schemes, including sham marriages, an ICE spokesman said. Five more taskforces were created in the 2017 financial year.

“Marriage fraud creates a vulnerability that may enable terrorists, criminals and illegal aliens to gain entry into the United States and remain in the country under the guise of legitimacy,” a department spokesman said.

In 2017, Homeland Security investigations initiated 1912 document and benefit fraud investigations, made 1176 arrests and received 758 convictions relating to document and benefit fraud cases. At least one woman was jailed for two years in connection to marriage fraud.

New Yorker Michaela* was 26 when she married her Brazilian friend in 2006 to save him from deportation. They divorced in 2008.

“Looking back now, I say to myself, ‘what a fool, don’t do something like that, don’t take that risk’,” she said. “It’s very 50/50, my feelings on it.

“Thankfully it all worked out and we got a divorce, no problem. It’s water under the bridge and luckily nothing happened. Would I do it again? I don’t think so.”

She tells anyone entering a sham marriage to think very carefully about the risks.

“Obviously it’s super nerve-racking because they could be like, ‘No, get out’,” Cynthia said. “One question can just f--- up everything. It’s a long process but it’s worth it in the end.”

For Esteban, overstaying his visa was the best decision he ever made.

“I’m on the thirty-somethingth floor in Wall Street overlooking Manhattan when my lawyer tells me, ‘You’ll have a temporary travel permit and a social security number within 100 days’.

“I’ve been waiting six years to hear those words.”

For Moses, the scariest thing is not lying to the government, it’s that someone who knows about his arrangement with Cynthia might tip off authorities.

“The only sure-fire way of this not blowing up in our faces is that we actually become married, and I don’t think either of us wants that,” Moses said.

“So everything is just a hope and a prayer and just trying to prep, prep, prep [for the interviews].”

Despite the immense personal risk, Moses is also standing by his friend.

“I want my friend to be here. I want her to have her business out here. I want her to be able to expand it in a way that she couldn’t.

"She’s a good girl and a great person and I’m glad to be a part of it.”

*Names changed to protect the subjects' identities.

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