Immigration-Related Marriage Fraud Hits a New High and a New Low in the UK

By David North on December 9, 2013

Immigration-related marriage fraud, always a criminal, grubby activity, hit both a new, depraved low in Great Britain the other day, as well as a peak in chutzpah.

A 23-year-old male from Pakistan, in illegal status and wanting legal papers, conned a 19-year-old woman of very limited intelligence (an IQ of 49) into an Islamic marriage. Since she had legal status in the UK the marriage would convey the same status on the alien.

An interview with USCIS FDNS
Architect Don Crocetti on Marriage Fraud:
View the Full Interview

Fortunately, a more alert immigration system than we have noticed the outrage and convinced authorities to de-certify the marriage and, presumably after some delays, to deport the alien.

The judge, according to a report in the Independent, said:

I can reach no other conclusion than he [the alien] deliberately targeted [her] because of her learning difficulties and her vulnerability. The courts will not tolerate such gross exploitation.

Meanwhile, based on the sham marriage, the alien had made an argument in the British asylum process that sounds like a bad parody of the old line about the man who killed his own parents asking the judge for leniency on the grounds that he was an orphan.

In this case, the alien had the chutzpah to seek asylum on the grounds that if he were to be forced back to Pakistan his family would kill him since his new "wife" was white British.

The news story is distressing for another reason: It shows, again, how much more advanced the Brits are in dealing with sham marriages than we are, something I have mentioned earlier.

Now I have been reading every article (and court case) that I can get my hands on about marriage fraud for the last three years. Even though we have lots more visa-creating marriages than the Brits do, I have never read about an American one involving someone with a deficient IQ — but they must have happened here.

In contrast, the British newspaper noted:

There is growing evidence that the practice of forcing Britains with learning difficulties into marriages for visa purposes is widespread. Government statistics show 114 cases of forced marriages involving victims with mental health problems were recorded last year — up from just 26 in 2009.

If our Department of Homeland Security has statistics on such marriages, which it should, but probably does not, they are kept in secret.