Section 12 Sham Marriages

• Library: Immigration Law Impacts in Family Law 2011

Despite all of the publicity focused on the removal of non-USCs
with criminal convictions as well as on immigration raids at factories and other businesses to remove individuals who work in the United States without authorization, preventing marriage fraud seems to
be one of the federal government’s top priorities. There are a variety of laws to prevent marriage fraud and to punish those who commit it. In fact, the entire CPR process described in §8 above is a product of the Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments Act of 1986, Pub. L. No. 99-639, 100 Stat. 3537.

In the immigration context, a “sham marriage” is one that is entered into primarily for immigration purposes. With most applications
for immigration benefits based on a marriage to a USC or an LPR, the applicant bears the burden of establishing that the marriage
is genuine. See USCIS Fraud Referral Sheet, AILA InfoNet Doc.
No. 10012861 (Jan. 28, 2010) (on file with author), for a list of the...