Marriage Fraud Waiver

Contents

1 Marriage Fraud Waiver
- 1.1 Marriage & Immigration
- 1.2 Cases involving INA Section 204(c)
2 Sham Marriage Allegations
3 Evidence Authorities Look At To Prove Your Marriage

If you are facing sham marriage allegations in an immigration situation, you need to fight it or it might destroy you. Some people come to the United States with a tourism Visa and then overstay in the country. If they end up marrying a U.S. citizen, they may face complications getting a permanent resident status. The reason for this is that Immigration Service agencies may suspect them of marriage fraud because they overstayed their Visa periods in the USA. In such as a situation, the non-US citizen spouse can find it extremely hard to be successful while seeking resident status and they may be placed in removal proceedings. Usually, these foreign spouse are put in removal proceeding because they remained in the USA longer than was authorized, not because the government suspected they committed fraud.

Marriage & Immigration

Cases involving INA Section 204(c)

Interim Decision #3203 | USCIS https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/INT/HTML/INT/0-0-0-7314/0-0-0-12924.html

Sham Marriage Allegations

Overstaying your permission to be in the US can make things really difficult if your spouse who is a US citizen files for your permanent resident status. You should know that in order for the government to prevent you from changing your status to permanent resident, they have to prove that your marriage was not valid. However, an immigration judge can still deny that application for resident status, and you may have to appeal such decisions more than once. You will need an experienced immigration lawyer to fight for your rights if you are in this situation. If you give up too soon, you may lose the chance of ever becoming a permanent resident in the United States.

There are people that consider entering into sham marriages for the sole purpose of obtaining immigration benefits. This is why immigration authorities apply very high levels of scrutiny to the legitimacy of a marriage that they suspect could be a sham. For this reason, you may have to go through a number of removal proceedings and appeals if you are suspected to have gotten into a sham marriage.

Evidence Authorities Look At To Prove Your Marriage

There are a number of factors that authorities consider that may indicate that a marriage is a sham. They include:

A marriage that is arranged by a third party
When there is a large disparity of age between the people that say they are married
When the petitioner’s are unable to speak each other’s languages
The married couple never cohabited before marriage
The marriage happened immediately one of the parties receives a notification to depart the United States
The person benefiting from the marriage is actually a friend of the family
Friends and family of the married couple have no idea the marriage happened
There is a vast difference in cultural and ethnic background

These are just the red flags that authorities may look for when they investigating your marriage. Since there are exceptions in every situation, you should not be intimidated if some of the above factors apply to your marriage. You will need an experienced lawyer to help you navigate this situation.