For those of us who believe in the sanctity of certain institutions — like matrimony and children — August 12 was a dark day. On the former front, the Department of Justice announced 11 defendants had been charged in connection with a “decade-long nationwide marriage fraud scheme” involving “more than 1,000 sham marriages”. With respect to the latter, the Department of State (DOS) issued a fact sheet on its new “Task Force to End Birth Tourism”. Is nothing sacred? Apparently not in this jaded age, when even former NFL players are getting deported.
$100 K for a Green Card?
The DOJ announcement, dated August 12, begins:
A two-count indictment was unsealed today charging 11 individuals with conspiring, over the course of more than a decade, to orchestrate more than 1,000 sham marriages to fraudulently obtain immigration status for foreign nationals, primarily citizens of the People’s Republic of China. Some individuals paid up to $100,000 per sham marriage, according to the indictment.
While all of the named defendants in that case (who enjoy a presumption of innocence until proven guilty) are residents of New York — where everything from hot dogs to hotel rooms are pricier than usual — $100,000 for a simple sham marriage seems exorbitant; when I worked for the former INS in California in the 1990s, aliens eager for a quicky green card could get one for a fraction of that.
That said, some things never change, and given the inherently intimate nature of wedlock, marriage fraud is one of the oldest immigration fraud schemes out there, if not the original one.
Consider this, from the Los Angeles Times in April 1991:
Every year, thousands of Americans marry non-U.S. citizens in phony, paper unions designed to circumvent immigration restrictions. According to the INS, the greater Los Angeles area has one of the highest rates of marriage fraud in the country. Here, immigration officials estimate, 15% of the 6,300 marriages last year between U.S. citizens and foreigners occurred solely for citizenship reasons — nearly double the national average.
It’s been 40 years since Congress passed the Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments of 1986 (IMFA), which added a new section 216 to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), establishing (among other things) a two-year conditional permanent resident status for alien spouses and their children who become permanent residents through marriage or as immediate relatives to deter such shenanigans.
That law also amended criminal provisions in section 275 of the INA, adding a new subsection (c) that reads as follows: “Any individual who knowingly enters into a marriage for the purpose of evading any provision of the immigration laws shall be imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or fined not more than $250,000, or both.”
Keep in mind (speaking of inflation), that a $250,000 fine in 1986 dollars would be more than $750,000 today, showing that Congress clearly wasn’t messing around.
Not that marriage fraudsters are much deterred, because as this indictment suggests, the money for would-be American spouses is good and many likely have no idea what the potential criminal penalties entail.
One USCIS unit, the Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) directorate, is tasked with “detecting, deterring, and administratively investigating immigration-related fraud”, including sham marriages, and as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reported, “Potential marriage fraud was consistently the most common subject of” FDNS’s “benefit fraud investigations”.
“Ten Red Flags of a Sham Marriage”
The issue is so prevalent that the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) — a private group that “provides training and support to a dedicated network of more than 400 Catholic and community-based immigration law providers in 49 states” — has a web page, “Ten Red Flags of a Sham Marriage”, advising practitioners what to do and not do when filing a marriage-based immigration petition for an alien client.
It explains:
Certain “red flags” of a possible sham marriage will cause USCIS to look closer at the marital relationship and likely result in an officer’s requesting more documentary evidence. In contrast, if other factors exist, the agency will more likely conclude the marriage is bona fide. This article will examine the factors or evidence that give rise to heightened scrutiny and the documentary proof you should include to increase the odds that the marriage-based petition or application will be approved.
Among the more common crimson banners described therein are: “minimal evidence of a shared life”; “short or unconvincing courtship”; “living separately”; “significant differences in age, religion, language”; and one that should burn brightly in the night for any legit lawyer, “payment for marriage”.
“Love”, as Sheryl Crow reminds us, “is free” — or at least should be.
Conversely, CLINIC suggests certain evidence that attorneys should file in support of their clients’ marriage-based applications, such as “financial commingling”, “children”, and “photos and social evidence”, in the latter case explaining:
Evidence can include photographs of the couple together over time, ideally in different settings (holidays, travel, family events); social media posts showing public acknowledgment of the relationship; cards, letters, emails, texts exchanged between the spouses; and wedding invitations, announcements, or guest lists.
Having prosecuted my fair share of marriage-fraud cases, I can tell you that such evidence can be a two-edged sword, particularly where the pictures in question look “sketchy”.
For proof, look no further than two pictures that DOJ included in its August 12 release, showing one of the defendants (“Anthony Cheng, 47, of Staten Island”) solemnizing the unions of two other defendants (“Erika Johnson, 43, of Ossining, New York” and “Sigrid Cetino, 32, of Peekskill, New York”, respectively) to foreign nationals.
Each of those “ceremonies” is taking place outdoors in what looks like fairly cold weather (based on the dead or dying grass and the lack of leaves on the trees), with Chang clad in what appears to be a Halloween costume gown and an ill-fitting clerical collar, both grooms wearing exercise pants, and each bride dressed for a brisk walk to the CVS.
The running shoes that Chang paired his “cassock” with were a nice touch.
There are no guests present to share the joy of the occasion in either picture, either, unlike in a third photo of what the department describes as a “sham wedding banquet” at in a Chinese restaurant (though it was taken in China, where all restaurants are probably so), with serving plates piled high just waiting for the attendees to take an obligatory picture before digging in.
Likely the most questionable snap, captioned by DOJ as “a couple’s staged photo, from the indictment”, shows the “couple” in question standing in front of an official sign with the Chinese national seal and the words “Marriage Registration Office of Tieling Civil Affairs Bureau” in Hanzi script (as per my Google Translate app) proudly showing off their Chinese passports.
Because what says “real marriage” more convincingly than a comingling of travel documents?
That said, what constitutes a valid marriage for immigration purposes is a complicated question (and I’ve seen my share of unusual ones), and again, all the defendants in this case are presumed innocent until proven guilty. But these photographs raise way more questions than they answer.
“Task Force to End Birth Tourism”
As I recently reported, on August 6, President Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14419, directing DHS and DOS to use their statutory authorities “to ensure … nonimmigrant visa classifications are used only for their lawful and intended purposes, and to prevent the exploitation of those classifications by persons engaging in birth tourism”.
Six days later, DOS announced its establishment of what’s formally called the “Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force” (BTPTF).
The BTBTF promises to review “the activities of visa holders worldwide to identify instances of birth tourism, take action to revoke visas of those who engage in or facilitate it, and dismantle the networks that profit from this abuse”; address abuses “by analyzing and connecting information held across the Department and other federal agencies, including the DHS”; and examine “travel histories of individuals from all around the world in order to end this exploitation and abuse”.
State claims it has already revoked more than 600 visas to curb abuses of our birthright citizenship laws, and vows to do more to undermine what it describes as a “pervasive” and “lucrative for-profit” birth tourism industry run by “facilitators” who “sometimes market themselves as doulas, midwives, or wellness advocates while openly advertising ‘birth in the U.S.’ services, visa coaching, and hospital arrangements”.
As per DOS, some facilitators go so far as to “forge medical documents or coach clients to conceal their true travel purpose and avoid paying hospital bills, with online marketing promising clients ‘automatic citizenship’ and ‘a future without borders’”.
The department offered three examples of foreign nationals who had engaged in birthright tourism deception:
One couple used a conference and a vacation trip to go shopping as cover stories to give birth to two children in the United States, lying about their travel purpose in two separate visa applications. On the second occasion, the couple concealed that they had a child. The visas have been revoked.
In another case, a foreign government official requested a visa to travel on behalf of her government for just one week, but instead stayed three months and gave birth in the United States before departing. The Department revoked the visa.
Another traveler applied for a visa to go on vacation in Orlando and instead traveled to Los Angeles and gave birth five days after arrival. The Department revoked the visa.
The day the BTPTF was announced, Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted:
American citizenship is not for sale.
But elaborate birth tourism rings are profiting off the exploitation of America's laws- coaching foreigners to defraud the U.S. visa system, arranging travel and housing, and even forging documents, all to enable foreign nationals to obtain…— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) August 12, 2026
Expect more updates to come.
Fraud in Immigration Is Nothing New
Fraud in immigration is not a novel concept, but for decades administrations have turned a blind eye to those who lie, cheat, and steal to obtain “lawful” status in the United States. Trump II is reversing that trend, and in its efforts will hopefully restore a degree of sanctity to two of our most cherished American institutions: marriage and the family. Now on to football.