U.S. citizen married immigration marriage fraud

Omaha, NE Viewed 226 times. Posted 6 months ago in Immigration

I was married to a woman from Tanzania. She told me she was going to be deported back to Tanzania because her visa had run out. She had talked to an imagration attorney who told her the only way to stop the deportation was to marry a US citizen. We had been close friends and she was crying because she said she did not want to leave me. We got married because I loved her and thought that she loved me. She later had a child. She talked me into having our daughter go back to Tanzania (at age 1) to live with her Mom and Dad and we got a nanny for her. Then I was told that our daughter was given citizenship for Tanzania. About 2 months after she got her full citizenship, she left me and filed for divorce a week after. I got a divoce attorney. Can she be deported or what can be done?

Answers (3)

David Nabow Soloway

This attorney is licensed in Georgia. Posted 6 months ago.

Although I am sorry to learn about the details you mentioned, those details strongly sound like a marriage that ultimately was unsuccessful rather than a marriage entered fraudulently. If your wife became a Permanent Resident and then a U.S. citizen, I presume that you and your wife lived together as a married couple (and had a child together) for significantly more than 3 years; you and your wife were interviewed in person by a USCIS officer at least two times where you testified that you and your wife were living in a bona fide marriage; and the USCIS officer concluded that your marriage was genuine after reviewing the testimony and other evidence. In light of all this, I would expect any efforts you might take to be unsuccessful in seeking to have the government revoke your wife's naturalization.

[Note: Consistent with Avvo policy, this communicaiton is intended as general information and not as specific legal advice, and this communication does not create an attorney-client relationship.]

David N. Soloway
Frazier, Soloway & Poorak, P.C.
1800 Century Place, Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30345
404/320-7000 877/232-5352 dsoloway@fspklaw.com

Jonathan H Levy

This attorney is licensed in California and 1 other state. Posted 6 months ago.

I can not advise you legally but I do not think you have much of a case for a sham marriage or your wife being deported from the facts you have related here.

Sarah M. Cross

This attorney is licensed in Michigan. Posted 6 months ago.

I agree with my fellow attorneys. It is nearly impossible for a US citizen to get a positive result (a deporation or denial of immigration benefits) from reporting benefit fraud to ICE without something more than a suspicion that your wife did not love you. Based on the length or your marriage and the fact that you have a child together I highly doubt that immigration is going to strip your wife of her citizenship and deport her. Unless you have some sort of outside evidence, like emails between her and her ex-boyfriend telling her that she only had to stick it out for a few years, you are wasting your time pursuing this. Besides, the fact that you married her knowing that it was the "only" way to keep her in the country might make immigration feel that you were complicit in any fraud that they find.

This answer is not intended to create an attorney-client relationship and is provided solely for informational purposes not as a substitute for legal advice.