The perils of international online dating

[one...two...tree 2,762]

When a series of Filipina women began to initiate contact on my Friendster account a few years ago, it became all too clear that social networking was not immune from the traditional power dynamics that link the developed and developing worlds. Call me cynical, but I could think of only one good reason why complete strangers from across the Pacific Ocean were suddenly "friending" me out of the blue. They were looking for a way out of the Philippines and a way into a green-card marriage. But it did not cross my mind at the time that the e-mail exchanges that might ensue from such forays might one day be pored over by immigration officials attempting to evaluate whether a given marriage had been undertaken in "good faith."

"The Disruption of Marital EHarmony: Distinguishing Mail-Order Brides from Online Dating in Evaluating 'Good Faith Marriage,'" a legal essay by Brandon N. Robinson published in the Public Interest Law Reporter, explores the murky world where Internet dating meets the (e)-mail-order bride.

The crux of the issue: Suppose a Filipina woman and an American man meet through the Web site of an international matchmaking organization (IMO) and get married. But then woman accuses the man of abuse, and she attempts to escape the marriage but maintain her rights to U.S. citizenship via the "self-petitioning" provisions of the Violence Against Women Act.

Horrific examples of such abuse abound -- that is not in question. But in some cases the female party's sole goal is to gain citizenship, and she may therefore be falsely accusing the male party of abuse. When such cases come up for adjudication, writes Robinson, one of the key issues the adjudicator needs to decide is whether the marriage was entered into in "good faith."

As Internet dating gains social acceptance and affordable access to the Internet continues to penetrate developing countries, the U.S. can expect to see an increase in the number of marriages between U.S. citizens (USCs) and foreign spouses by way of IMOs. These "matches" often pair up USCs with poorer spouses from economically developing areas such as the Philippines, Latin America, or the former Soviet Union. IMOs are still rife with opportunities for abuse from either side of the client base and even third parties ... The VAWA process allows the innocent Internet bride in an abusive relationship to file her own petition and to qualify for spousal adjustment of status and employment authorization -- an important benefit to the poor immigrant spouse who is recently severed from the hand that both abuses and feeds her. To take advantage of this process, however, she must prove that she entered into the marriage in "good faith" and not merely to achieve legal immigration status. Proving good faith will increasingly call upon innocent Internet brides to distinguish themselves from the stereotypical "fraudulent Internet brides" overshadowing the international matchmaking industry.

Which brings us to the e-mail trail:

One revealing indication may be the length of correspondence between intended spouses before deciding to enter into marriage. Undoubtedly, written exchanges between intended spouses may be packed with misrepresentations, but evidence of a candid and sustained exchange of information may reveal that the sought-after "golden ticket" is that of marriage to the specific citizen, and not an easy entree into the United States. Conversely, a rapid exchange of emails, subsisting mainly of discussion about immigration documentation, may reveal the opposite. An immigration official with access to such correspondence may gain considerably more insight into the immigrant's intent than he would by examining a joint tax return. Although such love letters could be artificially constructed to manufacture evidence, the typical adjudicator is trained in assessing credibility, whether interviewing evidence or petitioners.

Once upon a time, immigration officers asked you to identify the color of your spouse's toothbrush, in an attempt to prove whether or you were truly intimate with your partner. But now they're just going to demand your backed-up e-mail.

― Andrew Leonard

http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/06/11/...l_order_brides/

[almaty 19]

interesting read..and most Co's blow off the e-mails ...

[almaty 19]

interesting read..and most Co's blow off the e-mails ...

[alienlovechild 75]

Conversely, a rapid exchange of emails, subsisting mainly of discussion about immigration documentation, may reveal the opposite. An immigration official with access to such correspondence may gain considerably more insight into the immigrant's intent than he would by examining a joint tax return. Although such love letters could be artificially constructed to manufacture evidence, the typical adjudicator is trained in assessing credibility, whether interviewing evidence or petitioners.

You mean if her first e-mail was "Joe, I love you. Now, how do I fill out this immigration form?" is this good evidence of a real relationship based on love?

Once upon a time, immigration officers asked you to identify the color of your spouse's toothbrush, in an attempt to prove whether or you were truly intimate with your partner.

She was looking at more than my toothbrush.

Edited June 11, 2008 by alienlovechild

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

She was looking at more than my toothbrush.

were you brushing her teeth with it?

[alienlovechild 75]

She was looking at more than my toothbrush.

were you brushing her teeth with it?

Since she read this website I can't be explicit. If I am, she'll switch to just dental floss.

[Nagishkaw 510]

She was looking at more than my toothbrush.

were you brushing her teeth with it?

[Kathryn41 3,205]

heck, we've been married 4 years and I still am not able to tell you the colour of my husband's toothbrush! I don't even know what colour mine is without going to look - we change them regularly and we don't stick to the same colours. I only know it is mine from where I place it after I use it - and ditto for his!

I think it is a valid approach to try and read emails, but think of the amount of work that would entail! I think they would only go that route for a relationship that has obvious other incongruities because of the volume of work involved. They would have to have people whose sole job was reading these emails, and if it is up to the applicant to provide the email history, it is very easy to delete incongruous emails that might put a suspicion on the validity of the relationship. Certainly if it wasn't a valid relationship I think that would be a given course of event. So, maybe it is not as lucrative a research avenue for a fraudulent marriage as one might expect.

Edited June 11, 2008 by Kathryn41

[palilover 1]

Conversely, a rapid exchange of emails, subsisting mainly of discussion about immigration documentation, may reveal the opposite. An immigration official with access to such correspondence may gain considerably more insight into the immigrant's intent than he would by examining a joint tax return. Although such love letters could be artificially constructed to manufacture evidence, the typical adjudicator is trained in assessing credibility, whether interviewing evidence or petitioners.

You mean if her first e-mail was "Joe, I love you. Now, how do I fill out this immigration form?" is this good evidence of a real relationship based on love?

Once upon a time, immigration officers asked you to identify the color of your spouse's toothbrush, in an attempt to prove whether or you were truly intimate with your partner.

She was looking at more than my toothbrush.

From what I've read about interview questions, it sounds like they only ask about toothbrushes (and worse) when they expect fraud. (special fraud interview I guess). But..judging by the recent bust in FL about 50-some people getting busted for immigration fraudulent marriages...maybe they do not have those kidn of interviews anymore?

[AllRightsReserved 0]

She was looking at more than my toothbrush.

were you brushing her teeth with it?

Or you could be a dentist.

[VisaJourneyLady 33]

in our 3 person household we have 5 toothbrushes in a glass in the bathroom. I only know which mine is.

[Veritas 0]

The second paragraph from Andrew Leonard's Salon article states:

"The Disruption of Marital EHarmony: Distinguishing Mail-Order Brides from Online Dating in Evaluating 'Good Faith Marriage,'" a legal essay by Brandon N. Robinson published in the Public Interest Law Reporter, explores the murky world where Internet dating meets the (e)-mail-order bride.

Here is a link to the full text of the legal essay written by Brandon N. Robinson:

http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.c...randon_robinson

The following is a review of that essay:

______________________________________________________________

It seems that footnotes 3 and 4 on Page one are confused. And one of them quotes Scholes mentioning Match.com and Friendfinder.com.

The CIA study that the author relies on has been thoroughly discredited by a lengthy expose in the Washington Post last year. Spokesmen for the US government backtracked and admitted that this study was worthless and that only a handful of humans are trafficked into the US each year (none of which are connected with IMOs). So it is troubling that Brandon relies on this phony CIA study but also that he attempts to link it with IMO with his attempts at descriptive language which fall flat (Brandon states in his online bio that he was an English major): “This seemingly innocuous search for Cupid’s well-aimed fiber optic arrow, however, has a much more sinister underbelly…” and then he goes on in an attempt to smear IMOs by linking them to organized crime, drugs and human trafficking, naturally with no actual evidence other than the debunked study.

Brandon relies on radical polemicist Suzanne Jackson, who has written a law review article about international dating so biased, so political, so illogical and so juvenile that I was flabbergasted when I read it and realized that she is a law professor publishing this article in a law review. While I have not yet reviewed it in writing here, I did run down the references to part of it, which I believe is the same reference Brandon cites here at footnote 10 of page two. In this footnote, Jackson (and hence Brandon) recites the story of the 1998 arrest of eight underaged girls for prostitution. So I went to the law library and ran down this citation, which came from a newspaper. So I ran down the newspaper and found that it mentioned nothing about IMOs, yet Jackson and Brandon reference it in connection to IMOs and they connect the two together out of thin air: underaged prostitutes and IMOs.

Now, I don’t have my notes from that research so I could be talking about another of Jackson’s cites in her law review article, but I think not, I think this is the one. And if it is, I shudder to think about the future of the legal profession of people like Jackson and Brandon are using phony research to make any old assumptions they want and to write any damn thing they please, regardless of the truth of the matter.

On page three Brandon admits there are no reliable statistics on how many foreign women who met their American husbands leave them after getting their green card, but despite that he feels comfortable declaring that this is “not uncommon.” So I guess he has some divine powers, some sort of omniscience to know this in the absence of evidence, or else he is just extremely biased and he cannot keep his bias out of his analysis.

Further evidence of his bias come when he refers to the “innocent immigrant spouse” who could be the victim of abusive American men. And worse, this reference to the innocence of the foreigners comes in the very next paragraph after he says it is “not uncommon” that foreign women are green card sharks.

Wait, it gets worse. Brandon writes, referring to international marriages: “All too often, these relationships ultimately end in domestic violence.” He footnotes this, and the cite refers to domestic violence in the US in general!!! This is sham scholarship.

Then he writes: “The incidence of domestic violence against immigrant women is likely even higher than that of the nation as a whole.” What??? Not only is this false and so stated by Scholes on which he is relying here (Scholes says that the abuse rate in international marriages is 1/7 the abuse rate of domestic ones), but this sentence isn’t parallel. This guy is a lawyer and he states in his bio on Linkedin that he was an English teacher. What he is saying is that the incidence of domestic violence against immigrant women is higher than the incidence of domestic violence against the nation. Can there be domestic violence against a nation? And he says that it is “likely” higher, which means that he has no proof and is trying to pass off his opinion as fact.

He ends this paragraph by stating, It is possible, moreover, that marriage makes women even more vulnerable to abuse,” with a footnote 17 that leads nowhere.

Brandon’s bias against international marriages sometimes seems hilarious, such as when he writes, “Naturally, if a USC has been through two foreign fiancées in the last ten years, some questions undoubtedly arise as to what happened to the previous women. This disclosure allows both parties to be informed.” He uses the words “has been through” as if men are using up the women like towels and the wonder he expresses about what happened to the previous women suggests they are cut up and hidden beneath the floorboards of the house a la Edgar Allen Poe's "The Telltale Heart".

Or on page eight when Brandon says that the foreign women may have decided to marry the American man to escape the abuse of their foreign husbands, which assumes foolishly that the women are married to foreign men when they come here to get married to an American man and that most foreign men are abusive. Damn. Brandon thinks that most foreign men are abusive and most American men are abusive. Except him, of course, just all the rest of the men in the world.

Later Brandon discusses abuse of power and he uses the worn-out, knee-jerk feminist theories that are proposed in womens’ studies classes in campuses all across the US. Brandon must have taken some of these classes which are exercises in idiocy.

Brandon quotes Professor of Law Suzanne Jackson, who probably never met an international couple who met through the internet, stating: “women from economically weaker nations are offered en masse as potential wives to men from wealthier countries. Men invited to choose a wife enjoy superior bargaining power—they are the prizes, unique and valuable, while the women appear to be fungible, cheap commodities.” Contrast that with these quotes from Professor of Anthropology Nicole Constable, who met hundreds of international couples who met through the internet: "Men and their perspectives, I learned, are - like the women - often misunderstood or glossed in stark and stereotypical terms." "I have come to see the men involved in correspondence relationships as a very diverse group of people; many are decent and well-intentioned human beings who have learned a great deal in the process of their relationships." "Many went to great lengths to ensure their partner's comfort and happiness in the United States."

Among the many absurd ideas floated by Brandon, he discusses the way immigration officials could detect trafficking by examining the web profiles of American men to see if the same profiles are used with different pictures. But there is no one using IMOs to traffic women into the US. Brandon is leading us on a trip through his imagination fuelled by reading one too many reports from the Tahirih Justice Center or Suzanne Jackson. (Too bad Brandon’s major in college wasn’t economics instead of English or he would realize that trafficking in ones and twos like this wouldn’t yield enough profit to pay the bills. Or too bad he didn’t do the math and realize that if women were really being trafficked that way for years and years that eventually one of them would escape the brothel and go to the police and it would be all over the news.)

In summary, this article is one of the worst pieces of scholarship I have ever read on this subject. It is difficult for me to believe that the author really works for a federal judge. But if he really is working for a judge now I see that having top law school grades or getting on law review is not any indication of the intellectual abilities, logical processes or common sense of the student. And now I realize that people with such poor analytical skills as Brandon Robinson are in the government helping decide important court cases (such as European Connections v. US in Georgia) and this both frightens and saddens me.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Interesting, Veritas. Thank you for that info.