Nearly a thousand sham marriage cases in the US amid restrictions on "birth tourism"
Eleven people have been charged in the United States with arranging nearly 1,000 fake marriages to secure residency for mostly Chinese nationals, as Trump steps up crackdown on "birth tourism," a form of immigration that involves people who come to the United States solely to obtain citizenship for their children.
Nearly 1,000 marriage fraud cases have been filed in the United States as restrictions on "birth tourism" tighten.
The U.S. Department of Justice on August 12 charged 11 people with arranging nearly 1,000 fake marriages over a decade to help mostly Chinese citizens obtain legal residency in the United States, according to a Reuters report.
The indictment, filed in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that foreign nationals paid up to $100,000 each to a group of six "middlemen" to arrange for them to marry U.S. citizens and obtain legal residency. The indictment also alleges that U.S. citizens were paid up to $30,000 to agree to such marriages.
The report said the scheme also helped the newlyweds file paperwork with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to allow Chinese citizens to obtain lawful permanent resident status.
Attorney General Todd Blanch described the scheme as "one of the largest criminal cases of marriage fraud in U.S. history," saying it "showed the lengths people will go to to cheat our immigration system."
The incident comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week aimed at curbing "birth tourism." It is Trump's second attempt to limit birthright citizenship. On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an executive order signed by Trump on inauguration day that would have automatically stripped U.S. citizens of their citizenship if they were born to non-citizens.
The State Department announced that it has begun monitoring the activities of visa holders to combat women who come to the United States solely to obtain citizenship for their children.