It is a felony under federal law. Yet every year thousands of American citizens participate in sham marriages with illegal immigrants in exchange for thousands of dollars, and they do so without fear because there is virtually no risk of detection or punishment. All they need do is sign some papers, pose for phony wedding pictures and assure an overworked immigration interviewer the marriage is genuine — when in fact it is an unlawful way for illegal immigrants to become lawful U.S. residents. On the rare occasions the marriages are exposed as shams, American citizens rarely face consequences, even as their foreign spouses are deported. By some government estimates, as many as 60,000 of the 200,000 or so marriages by which illegal immigrants, or those on temporary visas, become lawful permanent residents and secure green cards are fraudulent. To be sure, an estimated 40,000 applicants are rejected out of hand for simple lack of proper documentation. Yet, of the 200,000 approved applications, the government investigates less than 1 percent for possible fraud. Even fewer petitions lead to criminal prosecutions of U.S. citizens, who conceivably could face five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. “The ringleaders tell people, ‘You probably won’t get caught, and if you do, all that’s going to happen is they’ll sort of wag their finger at you,’” said Dan Lane, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigator who in July broke up a large fraud ring involving 39 sham marriages in Sacramento. “Unfortunately, in some jurisdictions that’s the case.” The legal double standard has existed for decades. At a Senate subcommittee hearing in 1985, Alan C. Nelson, director of what was then the Immigration and Naturalization Service, chided the government for expelling immigrants who engage in phony marriages while giving their citizen accomplices a pass. A principal reason for the poor oversight is a lack of money.” In at least one way, the unequal treatment is formalized by law. While criminal prosecution of U.S. citizens is subject to a five-year statute of limitations, starting from the date of the marriage, deportation proceedings against immigrants can take place at any time. “If someone becomes a naturalized citizen by some sort of fraud perpetrated against the government, they can always be de-naturalized,” said Christopher S. Bentley, spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). “It’s not an easy process, but at that point, they could be deported.” There are exceptions to the practice of granting clemency to Americans. In one recent case, in Maine, federal prosecutors targeted the complicit U.S. citizens, as well as the illegal immigrants. A total of 11 Americans were indicted in a scheme that paired about three dozen Ugandans and Kenyans with an equal number of Maine residents, most of whom were family and friends of a Sabattus woman and her mother and sister. The orchestrator, 38-year-old Uganda native Rashid Kakande, was sentenced in June to two years in prison and fined $20,000. Despite the uncommonly aggressive prosecution, the Maine case nevertheless exposes cracks in the fraud prevention system. It was not the official interviews by USCIS that detected Kakande’s habitual fraud — instead, it was two anonymous tipsters who alerted investigators to the scheme. Government auditors have long complained that there are numerous barriers to effective marriage fraud enforcement, which block cases from ever reaching a U.S. attorney’s desk. A principal reason for the poor oversight is a lack of money. While the Department of Homeland Security spent $6.3 billion on border security in fiscal year 2011, it devoted only $39.2 million to fighting immigration fraud of all varieties. The same officers who determine whether a marriage-based green card application is fraudulent also must handle national security background checks and other high-priority functions that relegate fraud to the Homeland Security back burner.” In addition, the process of initiating fraud investigations is cumbersome, according to a report by Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General. A suspicion that a marriage is fraudulent must be vetted at four levels — two at USCIS, two at ICE — before it is fully investigated. Even then, a U.S. attorney may decide not to prosecute. USCIS interviewers, the first line of defense against fraud, have little incentive to request investigations, the inspector general found in its 2008 review. Graded by their efficiency in processing immigration petitions, many interviewers are reluctant to fill out time-consuming fraud referral forms, unless the deceptions are obvious, the inspector general concluded. Another impediment to more rigorous review of the marriages, the inspector general’s audit found, was the overall caseload for the government interviewers. The same officers who determine whether a marriage-based green card application is fraudulent also must handle national security background checks and other high-priority functions that relegate fraud to the Homeland Security back burner. Spokespersons in Boston and Washington for the two federal agencies that review the marriage applications and investigate the allegedly fraudulent ones declined comment on what changes had been made in the process since the 2008 Inspector General’s report. They also declined to provide statistics on the number of such marriage applications that have been approved in Massachusetts and other New England states, how many were rejected and how many were investigated for fraud. A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz also declined to discuss the equity of allowing those Americans who might be involved in fraudulent marriages to escape prosecution while the immigrants are deported. But it has been this way for many years, according to David North, a fellow at the non-partisan Center for Immigration Studies. North testified at the1985 Senate hearing, where he said the government “should try to get pictures of U.S. citizens on film going to jail for their part in conspiratorial marriage frauds.” Looking back at his unheeded suggestion, North offered an exasperated reaction: “Believe me, I’m frustrated,” he said in a recent interview. Lane, the ICE investigator, said he knows U.S. attorneys, with limited resources, have to prioritize their caseloads. While Americans who trade wedding vows for cash may not seem like important targets, he said, they could threaten national security by marrying terrorists. Plus, he noted, there’s the principle of equal justice. “It wouldn’t be fair to leave people hanging out there who were involved in these sham marriages,” while their immigrant spouses are deported.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 05:49:14 +0000