Advertisement

From Apply Now,
Your Guide to Immigration Issues.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!

Supply and demand: That's what it comes down to. When there's a crime that pays really well, especially if physical danger is absent, it's very likely that someone will stand up to take the risk.

Realizing that people in certain foreign countries will pay big money to get themselves or a loved one into American, some people are willing to risk their own freedoms for the riches that immigration fraud can offer.

There are countries teaming with people who would do or pay almost anything to get into the United States, or to get a loved one in. And those who understand the immigration process know that for foreigners, marriage to a US citizen is the fastest ticket to the United States.

They usually also know that immigration fraud is a federal crime, but many are willing to take their chances. After all, love, or the absence of love, can be hard to trace and prove. Often times, no one bothers to try until the culprits raise big, huge red flags, by-for example-commiting the fraud so many times that even the most intelligence-challenged individuals couldn't help but notice something amiss.

One Harlem woman applied for a total of 27 marriage licenses, while five other faux brides completed 16 applications between them. All were involved in scams to help foreign men get green cards, as well as Social Security cards and driver's licenses. According to New York City Clerk Victor Robles, these career brides earn $3,000 to $10,000 per fake marriage.

Dezerrie Cortes, 40, Maria Davis, 26, and Chera Larkins, 32, all of Manhattan, along with Monique Figueroa, 26, of Queens, were charged recently with perjury because they lied on their applications. Veronica Housey and Francine Eubanks are being sought for similar crimes in New York.

Most of the bogus grooms came from Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Pakistan.

Marriage license rules have been tightened in New York following the discovery of these career brides.

But women aren't the only ones selling themselves into would-be marriages. In Virgina, a much larger-scale scheme involves two Chinese men, David and Michael Cheng, restauranteers who cook up more than just food.

According to prosecutors in Washington, families in China have been paying the brothers between $20,000 and $60,000 to secure fake American fiancés for their sons and daughters, so that they could get over here on fiancé visas. In these cases, as with the New York women, marriages usually didn't take place. The immigrants were content to land their feet on US soil, to join the estimated 7 million illegals now on American soil.

Curbing this until-now unstoppable tide of undocumented aliens has become a top priority since September 11th made it more of a security issue than a social one.

These cases are the extremes though, involving people who got both greedy and careless. Most marriage fraud involves one transaction: A US citizen accepts a one-time payment to actually marry the foreigner. Usually they sponsor the immigrant, go through with a wedding, and live as roommates, or at least set-up a joint home and accounts that make them appear to live together. It is these cases which are the hardest to uncover, since doing so would require a great deal of private investigation and manpower. Still, people who commit this crime tend to think of it as innocently helping someone out. They are not usually savvy criminals, and they often make blatant mistakes that might be picked up by an immigration official. When this happens, the outcome is not good.

Committing even one case of marriage fraud is a serious crime, punishable by prison. It hardly seems worth it in the end. After all, freedom is pretty important; it's the very thing that usually motivates foreigners to commit this type of fraud in the fist place: Coming to the Land of the Free. But as they say, freedom is never free, is it?