Intellectual Property Law

IMBRA and Its Requirements for IMB- Are they Fair for Americans?

By IBLS Editor

I inquired of one IMB about this issue and here is their response:

?Being a Russian based agency American laws do not apply on us. But for our

American clients together with their membership details we do inform them
that in order to avoid problems when they apply for Finacee visas what
documents they should send to the ladies with their first mails, we also ask
them to save a copy of these mails. (We also advice the ladies to do the
so). But we also have clients who stated when they applied to the visa that
they met their future wives when they been visiting Russia and some say they

were introduced to each other trough friends.? (sic)

As you can see, some (and I suspect many) foreign companies don?t care about US law, and encourage clients to simply lie about how they met, which, under the circumstances, is a perfectly reasonable way to circumvent the law, in their view. This particular IMB does not offer individual facilitation, they simply sell you a list of every lady who has registered with them for a set price, and you choose who to communicate with. Once they have your money, they don?t care if you ever consummate a relationship or if the lady ever gets a visa. In fact, many such sites are scam websites using bogus profiles and stolen pictures, with the intent to try to scam cash from gullible American men.

But, even if the client does as they suggest, the consular official can still deny the visa because the IMB did not do the required checks and notifications, and I?m sure that lying on a visa application is both a crime and cause to revoke it. And, the fact is that most American men searching for a mate internationally don?t know about IMBRA. Few dating sites bring this up, and if they do, it?s after they get your money. One notable exception is Elena?s Models, which is based in Australia. They do comply with IMBRA.

There is another problem with this set of laws that I?ve become aware of. The newest immigration scam is based on the availability of a ?battered spouse waiver? (8 U.S.C. § 1154 and 108 Stat. 1296) for victims of domestic violence who come over on a K-1 visa.

What happens in this new brand of green card scam is that while being courted, the women are all sweetness and light, loving, affectionate, sexually available and seductive, to induce the man to marry them. But, after arriving in the US and marrying their partner, they become completely different, spurning their husbands and planning their escape. The real harm comes when some of them deliberately abuse themselves (or find someone to do it for them), causing themselves physical injuries, then call the police, falsely claiming that their spouse abused them. Given evidence of physical injury and the prevailing ?presumption of guilt? built in to ?mandatory arrest? spouse abuse laws these days, and the particular bias against men who seek out ?mail order brides,? the police and courts almost always believe the woman, arrest and charge the man, kick him out of his own house and award the woman a divorce with a fat settlement, along with a free green card. It?s a scam that can destroy a man?s life and reputation in an instant, based on a lie that?s not just facilitated, but encouraged by current immigration law. Worse yet, sometimes children are involved, and in some cases, the women take the children and return to Russia, along with enough money to live a very comfortable life. And Russia doesn?t respect US custody laws very carefully.

It seems that everyone in Congress, DHS and law enforcement believes that all foreign brides must certainly be ignorant, illiterate, backwards foreigners who are inevitably and always being taken advantage of by controlling, abusive, domineering American males. It never occurs to them that some women, particularly from Eastern Europe where college educations are free and citizens are most often very well educated, could possibly be conniving scammers intent on manipulating the system to get into the US and get some money by abusing their spouses and the immigration system. To a scheming woman, a black eye and some bruises are a cheap price to pay for a green card and half her spouse?s assets, and the freedom to look for another victim.

I?ve read several stories from American men who have had this happen to them. I?m currently trying to track down the individuals so I can interview them myself for an article I?m working on. I think this particular aspect of the law needs some review. One suggestion I have is that if American men are required to reveal such intimate information about themselves, foreign women should be required to do the same before a visa is issued.

Regarding possible avenues of legal attack on IMBRA, in European Connections v. Gonzales, Judge Cooper dismissed (in my opinion correctly) the complaint largely because he didn?t feel that European Connections, a commercial entity, was being unconstitutionally constrained or compelled in its free-speech.

However, what Judge Cooper did not address, because it was not before the court, is whether or not a US client?s First Amendment or privacy rights are being infringed by IMBRA.

In my view, and at first blush without any real research, I would object to being ?compelled? to reveal extremely sensitive personal information to a third party foreign company merely in order to ?lawfully? court a foreign woman. Despite the characterization of such relationships as ?commerce? and a transaction between an IMB and a US ?consumer,? the fact is that in many cases (not all, of course) it?s a relationship between two consenting adults, and the IMB?s only involvement is in facilitating the communication between the individuals. Only if you assume that all foreign women are stupid can IMBRA be justified, and that?s both sexist and racist in implication.

I can see the rationale for making sure that a foreigner applying for a K-1 visa receives a criminal history disclosure about their potential spouse prior to the visa being issued, but I question whether the federal government has any authority to demand, much less require disclosure to third parties of private information such as marital status, number of children and all places of residence since age 18. I don?t believe this information is required anywhere, by anyone, by government mandate in the US. I would attack the law on those grounds.

Criminal histories are public records, and the sex offender registry is as well, so I see no difficulty with the DHS performing such a search and sending the results to the foreign K-1 applicant. I can even see justification for a US sponsor of a K-1 visa to provide a sworn affidavit attesting to his (or infrequently her) marital and progeny status. This would be reasonable and appropriate information for the government to require in order to ensure that the K-1 applicant is legitimately seeking immigration as a potential spouse and that the US spouse is legally free to sponsor the applicant. It would also give the government an avenue for prosecution of true abusers.

The problem lies in putting the burden on the IMB to perform ministerial duties that the DHS should be performing. Only the DHS can either confirm or safeguard the requisite information, or take legal action based upon that information. As it stands now, and as Judge Cooper points out, the information given by the US citizen is ?self-certifying? and there is no criminal penalty for the client if he lies. But there should be.

So, my suggestion is that IMBRA needs to be amended to require that both the foreign K-1 applicant and the US sponsor certify to the government and one another, under penalty of perjury, their criminal history, marital and progeny status before any K-1 visa is issued. Because the current law is unenforceable against foreign IMBs, and the penalty for the failure of a foreign IMB to comply with US law is that the innocent parties, their clients (on both sides of the ocean) are unfairly and unjustly penalized, this law must be challenged. Moreover, the current law does much to protect the K-1 applicant and nothing to protect the US citizen, which also doesn?t seem fair.

What?s required are some attorneys willing to take on the case, and a US IMB client-plaintiff who objects to the law. Especially useful would be a K-1 visa sponsor who has had the visa denied under IMBRA authority, preferably one who is not a registered sex offender, of course. Then again, even sex offenders are entitled to court foreign women, unless it violates their parole. As long as the potential spouse is fully informed, it?s not up to our government to interfere with love relationships.

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Regards,
Scott Weiser, Editor

Altnews? LLC

P.O. Box 20507
Boulder, CO  80308

Associate Member of the Colorado Press Association

© 2007 Altnews ?

Full post as published by IBLS Internet Law Blog on July 30, 2008 (boomark / email).