to hide his real name--
confessed to her that he was offering $5,000 to single American women to marry him. He told her that about his homosexuality, and explained that he had been trying to buy a wife, or better, a green card for about two years. That first night, Mary Helen Kraig --whose real name remains also secret-- only said "Good luck!"
But two years later, on 1996, she would say "I do" in a civil ceremony at City Hall that granted Marco a green card.
heirs is just one of the thousands of fraudulent marriages that happen every year in the U.S. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) ongoing investigation is focusing on more than 15,000 potential cases of marriage fraud. But for Kraig, her wedding "was almost romantic," she said.
They started going out together in 1994, and Kraig went with Massera to gay bars to look for a lesbian wife. He wanted to avoid the sexual tension of a traditional marriage, she explains. Massera and Kraig moved in a Midtown apartment together in 1996. Three
months later, she proposed for free.
A civil ceremony at City Hall made her Ms. Massera, under the agreement of getting an annulment later on, when she would get "really" married in the Catholic Church. Her parents -who still don't know about her wedding- will be invited this time. If discovered, Kraig will be barred forever from obtaining green card based on future marriages and family relationships, and Massera's permanent resident status would be terminated and would become deportable.

The inspection process
n their first interview with the INS, six months after their wedding, they were asked simple questions. "What is his parents' phone number?" the INS official asked. The new Ms. Massera remained silent for a couple of seconds, and then panicked.She had forgotten it. Finally, her attorney just said "she has that number in speed-dial."
Their second interview happened in July, last year. He had moved to an apartment in the West Village, but they were still in touch. "What's his mother name?" was the question she did not know this time. She had met his parents, she explained, but she used to call them "Mamma" and "Mr. Massera." She finally said so.
The explanation convinced the INS officer and cleared the Masseras, who will get their annulment before the summer. Now she doesn't need to remember names any more. Her cell phone screen only displays the word "marito" (husband) before she picks it up and starts speaking Italian with him.

 


Married since 1996, Marco got his green card. Now Mary is leaving her wedding band and getting an annulment

 
The attorney's perspective

Jacqueline Baronian is an immigration attorney at Cyrus Mehta legal office. She is Chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association New York Chapter. In her position, she has been in contact with different frauds surrounding the green card application process.

* Marriage: "Marriage fraud is very serious," she says. If the INS suspects that there is a fraud case, the interview process becomes more exhaustive. They separate husband and wife in different rooms, and tape-record their answers. "In these cases," she says, "the questions can be intimate, from the color of the toothbrush to what kind of birth control the couple uses." If the INS finds contradictory answers, most of the times, it will just ask: "Do you really want to go on with this?" and will let the couple "withdraw the case," without further prosecution. But if prosecuted, penalties are severe. The Public Law 99-639 (Act of 11/10/86), which was passed in order to deter immigration-related marriage fraud, stipulates that if the aliens cannot show that their marriage was "a valid one, their conditional immigrant status is terminated and they become deportable." The US citizens involved in the fraud are barred from obtaining green card based on future marriages and family relationships. ·

* Lotteries: If a person wins based on fraudulent methods, for example by sending multiple applications under the same name spelled differently, and "the INS finds out, he or she will be disqualified." The problem is, she says, that there is no certainty that the State Department software can double check if different names are married to the same spouse or were born in the same day and place. ·

* Attorneys: "If a Law firms offering to increase your chances of winning, it's a scam. It is unethical and disgusting." But Jacqueline Baronian still recommends to hire a lawyer, because "the laws are so complicated that somebody might have done something immigration-wise that should not be relevant to the process but that may affect his or her application."