“Marriage Fraud”— The Next Fake Issue in Immigration

Melania Trump, born in the former Yugoslavia, came to the U.S. on a H-1B work visa. Elaine Chao—wife to Senate Leader Mitch McConnell— was born in Taipei, Taiwan. Her biography reports that she came to the U.S. on a freight ship along with her mother and two younger sisters. Their passage took 37 days.

Both women achieved extremely high levels of professional success on their own merits—Melania as a world class model in a highly competitive labor market, and Elaine in a variety of key leadership roles (e.g., United Way president) after earning an MBA from Harvard.

In 1965, the U.S. moved from a restrictive to a permissive immigration policy in response to its position as a world leader— militarily, but also as a beacon of freedom.

Family—including marriage— was a key part of this change. When Chao arrived in the U.S., her father was here as a student. Presumably, she acquired citizenship through his legal status in the U.S.—this would be a routine way to establish citizenship.

The path to citizenship for these two leading ladies of the GOP is at odds with a vocal segment of Republicans who want to take away the “family adjustment” element of the Immigration and Nationality Act. They make the argument that there is rampant “marriage fraud.”

In Louisiana, legislation was introduced in 2015 to prohibit or severely limit this path to citizenship. In a news interview, state senator A.G. Crowe said, “Fraudulent marriage is the number one way to get a green card.” Like so many anti-immigration bills, the proposed law would require much more documentation for a marriage license than the State Department requires to establish the validity of a marriage.

Critics of the bill said that marriage fraud isn’t a widespread problem in the state. See here: http://www.ibtimes.com/immigration-reform-2015-marriage-fraud-bill-targeting-undocumented-immigrants-1962516

My wife, Janet, added a nice point when I ran this post by her. Donald Trump wasn’t divorced when Melania and the president started to date. Now that’s real marriage fraud!

Let’s celebrate having Melania Trump and Elaine Chao in the U.S. as citizens—and let’s hope that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell look no farther than their household to push back against the idea of denying family citizenship.