By Joe Guzzardi
06/13/2008
My last three columns have been about Senators Dianne Feinstein, Teddy Kennedy and La Raza loudmouth Janet Murguia.
It’s time to write about something more amusing. How about sex?
In reality, today’s subject — fiancée visas — is only indirectly about sex. And K-1 visas are not really funny at all. They play a major role in the rampant non-immigrant visa abuse that shows no sign of abating.
Still, writing about fiancée visas is a refreshing change of subject from chronicling the treasonous behavior of the usual suspects.
And — added bonus — VDARE.COM readers love K-1 visa columns!
Rarely a week goes by that I don’t get correspondence from someone who either has been taken to the cleaners by his foreign-born bride. Or from someone else who claims that I don’t know what I’m talking about because he found the love of his life halfway around the world.
Although I've been reporting on fiancée visa fraud since 2002, when I told the story of Abby, a fiancée bride/student in one of my English as a Second Language classes, I’m still surprised when readers, in all sincerity, tell me that they could only find happiness on the other side of the globe.
A reader from, for example Pocatello, Idaho, writes to say that after a futile three-decade search in the continental United States, he finally found his "soul mate" in Bangkok, more than 8,000 miles away.
Such a statement defies credibility. It’s more likely to be heard — and believed — in a junior high school hallway. Are there no single, suitable women in nearby Boise, Seattle or Portland?
And the letters in defense of the fiancée visa have an angry tone. Who am I, the happily married want to know, to deny them their one true love?
I'll repeat the disclaimer that I add to all my fiancée visa columns: I know that many marriages facilitated by these visas are loving and will be long lasting.
But I also know, from my own classroom observations, that many mail-order bride unions end, at best, with separation — and, at worst, in rip-off, anguish and financial disaster.
Whether marriages to foreign-born brides work out or don’t is not my primary concern. My interest is in reducing the legal immigration facilitated by visa fraud, and in ending chain migration that is an extension of non-immigrant visas.
And since, in another recent column, I identified legal immigration as a bigger problem than the illegal immigration, consider today’s piece the first in an ongoing series of articles intended to bring more attention to visa fraud.
Today, we'll profile one of the prospective brides — Rose, a personal acquaintance of reader "Stanley" — and we'll detail just how shockingly little is required to obtain a fiancée visa. Creativity is the essential ingredient.
Rose is one of tens of thousands of prospective "soul mates" currently available to you on one of the hundreds of Internet agencies designed to hook you up.
And Stanley is an American who frequently travels to the Philippines where, on a recent trip, he befriended the bar girl at a sex club on internationally-notorious Santos Street.
Here’s Rose’s story.
As it comes to pass, Rose has an alter ego to her hooker persona.
A few months ago, hearing her biological clock tick and knowing that her best days as a top-earning prostitute (it’s a competitive career in the Philippines) are quickly passing her by, Rose invested a few hundred dollars in a cute summer dress, a flattering haircut, good make-up, a professional photographer and advertised herself on an agency that specializes in finding American husbands for Asian women.
Rose listed her hobbies as cooking and long moonlit walks along the beach — sure-fire winning qualities for Internet saps.
These deceits are a logical extension of Rose’s profession: tell the customer what he wants to hear and make sure he comes back for more.
Think about it. If you were down and out in a Third World country and faced a grim future, why not take a shot at the big prize — a U.S. Green Card? You have nothing to lose.
And, sure enough, within no time, Rose’s e-mail filled up with messages from the lonely-hearted. Rose struck up a dialogue with a lucrative prospect in Alabama who sent her Western Union money orders in amounts of several hundred dollars a clip so she — supposedly — can buy sundries in anticipation of her trip to America.
And, Stanley tells me, Rose is indeed anxious to come to the United States…but not to live in Alabama. Rose has family in California so she'll be headed there just as soon as she gets her visa and lands stateside.
What’s to stop Rose from breaking the terms of her fiancée visa — that is, to marry Mr. Alabama within 90 days upon her U.S. arrival?
Absolutely nothing.
And "nothing" is pretty much all anyone has to do to acquire a fiancée visa in the first place.
Since there is no legal proof that documents that a person intends to marry, the visa is preposterous on its face. All any applicant has to do is claim that she’s engaged.
And, as the fiancée visa regulations are currently written, the couple only has to prove that they have met in person at least once within the last two years as well as pass a physical and basic background check.
As evidence of "courting," photos will suffice. The Internet agencies are happy to advise you on how to best take those happy snapshots.
One site suggests taking as many pictures as possible with all the women whose acquaintance you make at the introductory "socials" — where dozens of willing and eager women parade themselves among their potential husbands — since you never know who your lucky choice might be.
Looking back to 2002 when I wrote my column about Abby, I wish I had counted the numbers of Internet sites that provide introductions of men to women (and occasionally women to men) and offer assistance in filing for the K-1 visa so that I could compare that total to today’s.
Since I didn’t, I’m left to make the educated guess that more than ten times the number of sites is out there than six years ago.
And I'd also love to know how many visas are issued based on legitimate circumstances — a businessman travels to Brazil, meets a woman, gets to know her over the next several trips, falls in love, etc. — versus the mail-order bride scams.
That statistic, alas, is not available.
Let’s imagine for a moment that Congress were to wake up and get serious about ending visa fraud. And let’s further fantasize that it correctly identified the K-1 visa as particularly useless and wide-open to abuse.
Who, pray tell, would make up the lobby to defend the K-1? That would consist of white, middle class American males — a demographic that, as we all know, has no muscle whatsoever.
For the hopelessly romantic of you out there, here’s another consideration that should temper your enthusiasm.
The K-1 visa entitles its holder to a work permit, something most immediately apply for. The happy bride will soon be out in the employment market competing — possibly with you — for the ever fewer jobs in today’s tight economy.
All the foreign-born brides I know work. They don’t have great jobs — hospital employees, nursing home care givers, cashiers, waitress — but they're jobs many Americans would eagerly snap up.
And once the newly-arrived enter the work place, they're positioned to move up into jobs with higher salaries and benefits
When a non-immigrant visa like the K-1 doesn’t serve America’s common good and is, in fact counterproductive to the nation’s best interests, the decision to eliminate it should be an easy one.
Now here comes the hard part.
Someone in Congress has to step up to the plate.
Or should I say, step up to the altar?
Joe Guzzardi is the Editor of VDARE.COM Letters to the Editor. In addition, he is an English teacher at the Lodi Adult School and has been writing a weekly newspaper column since 1988. This column is exclusive to VDARE.COM.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.