spaf@gatech.UUCP (Gene Spafford) (05/06/84)
(This is a reply to an article in net.people. I also am sending it to
net.legal and net.news for reasons which should be obvious after
reading my reply.)
Let me just point out that the request for a marriage of convenience to
help beat immigration laws is against federal law. Anyone responding
to the request is guilty of conspiracy to violate immigration laws -- a
felony of some consequence. Furthermore, there have been multiple
cases where foreign nationals have been deported (and the marriages
legally annulled?) despite marriage to a US citizen. Your friend
should inquire about becoming a permanent resident or seeking political
asylum, despite the possible repercussions. The use of fraud to obtain
citizenship can result in her forcible deportation at a later date if
it is discovered, as well as prosecution against yourself and anyone
else involved.
Believe it or not, the mere fact that machines on the net have passed
along your request may possibly make the netnews administrators of
those machines fellow conspirators -- they have assisted you in an
attempt to break federal law, although it was not active assistance.
Although I am sure that you meant well, you have just used Usenet to
solicit others to join a conspiracy to violate federal laws.
PLEASE do NOT use the net in this manner. It threatens us all.
Requests for contract killers and arsonists, broadcasts of classified
material, and attempts to solicit fellow conspirators are all
inappropriate for the net.
--
Off the Wall of Gene Spafford
The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf.GATech @ CSNet-Relay
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,rlgvax,sb1,unmvax,ulysses,ut-sally}!gatech!spaf
"Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I'll break my lever."matt@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (05/07/84)
I can't believe that usenet people could possibly be held responsible for a crime planned on the net. By analogy the phone company would be co-conspirators in any crime planned on the telephone! ___________________________________________________ Matt Arpa: Crawford@ANL-MCS.ARPA Crawford UUCP: ihnp4!oddjob!matt
reza@ihuxb.UUCP (H. Reza Taheri) (05/09/84)
{}
Mike Meyer says:
> There are some legal problems with your proposal to marry an american
> citizen and then quickly obtain a divorce. I'm not a lawyer, but my
> understanding is that is the marriage does no last for at least two
> years the Immigration and Naturalization Service can withdraw the
> permanent residence status on the grounds that the marriage was a sham
Well that's not quite true. Up until several years ago the INS
would very easily grant Permanent Residence to spouses of U.S.
citizens. Then the rash of temporary marriages started. To fight
that, the INS would snoop around for up to a year to make sure that
there really was a marriage. They would make unannounced visits to
the home of the couple and ask questions from the neighbors and
parents to make sure that they were living together and the marriage
was in the open.
Now the procedure has been reversed. The INS grants permanent
residence (the so called Green Card) without checking the validity (?)
of the marriage. The time of the procedure has been cut down to only
a few months.
This all to say that getting married just to get a green card is not
morally right, but the INS does not really care. I am not even sure
that there is a law against it.
H. Reza Taheri
...!ihnp4!ihuxb!reza
(312)-979-1040abeles@mhuxm.UUCP (abeles) (05/10/84)
<> Regarding INS policies: US immigration laws are one thing, but I understand that the INS has virtually carte blanche to act as they see fit in a number of areas. Here's a true life example: Someone I know very well has close friends in Switzerland (not exactly a third-world country) as a result of having lived there during WW II in order to escape Nazi persecution. One of the daughters of her Swiss friend, along with a friend of hers, decided to visit the United States last year. They obtained tourist visas in Switzerland which were good for six months. Arriving at Customs in NY, the girls, speaking poor English, were asked what they were to do in the US. The friend's daughter indicated she was to spend time touring the country and living with her "aunt", and that she would be helping her with housework in exchange for living there. Whereupon the INS agent at Customs stamped her visa good for only 30 days, in spite of the 6 months previously granted. The "aunt" called INS and expecting there had been a mistake owing to language difficulties, found much to the contrary that the Customs agent had full power to alter the original visa! Solving this problem eventually required a hearing in a Federal building in lower Manhattan, New York City. The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service has the power to act quite arbitrarily, and according to the local Congressman, this is due somewhat to legislative problems in the House of Representatives because of a desire on the part of (among others, but particularly) Tip O'Neill, the Speaker of the House, to deal politically with the growing Hispanic lobby. The Hispanics, of course, are interested in getting more liberal policies promulgated for citizenship for immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries. So basic problems for nice, French- speaking Swiss tourists go unaddressed. Of course, the Swiss are rather sticky themselves when it comes to granting citizenship to outsiders--but that's a subject for another article. --Joe Abeles, Bell Communications Research, a.k.a. Bellcore, Murray Hill, NJ