Would you consider it Fraud/"Just" for immigration benefit?

[dazed'nconfused 14]

Having a conversation with workmates today and this has been rolling around in my head ever since. 

 

If a couple gets married - a genuine couple of course - who would otherwise never have wanted to get married (ie - both parties firmly happy with living together without getting the State/Government involved with paperwork) do so in order to apply for Immigration benefits - would you consider it fraud or just doing what's necessary? 

It seems 50/50 split with my workmates.  It's funny since my partner and I are doing immigration paperwork for me to LEAVE Australia and several of my workmates are doing it to bring their partners here, so it's a pretty common discussion. 

I find it strange that Australia (who are pretty conservative and have only just brought in marriage equality, years behind many other places) you can apply for immigration benefits for a "defacto" partner (ie: where you're committed/living together but not married and don't want to be right now) but you can't do something like that in the US. 

Edited April 30, 2018 by dazed'nconfused

[Dashinka 24,654]

Personally, if this couple is a genuine couple as you stated, I would not consider it fraud if they decided to officially tie the knot for some form of government benefit be it immigration, tax, or otherwise.  The curious part is that you state they are perfectly happy living together without marriage, but if they are a couple from two different countries living together in either one of their countries, the question is raised as to how the foreigner in this relationship gained residency to live together in the first place unless you are talking about one of the couple being living in a country illegally.

[dazed'nconfused 14]

It was a badly worded hypothetical - as in, if the couple in question (in this case, myself and my partner) were able to just live together, they'd be perfectly happy. 

If we were both able to live in the same place legally, we'd never be thinking marriage which one of my workmates says is "basically fraud." 

My thinking is more along the lines of fraud is someone paying a USC they don't know/aren't in a real relationship with to marry them for immigration, or someone targeting/scamming a USC - not a genuine couple getting married for a benefit - be it immigration, tax, insurance, housing or whatever. 

 

I just thought it might make for an interesting conversation. 

 

 

[Going through 5,671]

38 minutes ago, dazed'nconfused said:

If a couple gets married - a genuine couple of course - who would otherwise never have wanted to get married (ie - both parties firmly happy with living together without getting the State/Government involved with paperwork) do so in order to apply for Immigration benefits - would you consider it fraud or just doing what's necessary? 

If it's a bonafide marriage with true intentions, I wouldn't consider it fraud for immigration purposes...because eventually ONE of them is going to have to go through the immigration process in either country depending on where they want to permanently live together as a couple.

Edited April 30, 2018 by Going through

[mrmvkjts 459]

If my husband would be Austrian or I would be american and we could live in either place without getting married we probably would have never done it! 

We love each other, he is my best friend and of course it’s genuine and bona fide relationship, so I would not consider it fraud at all! We basically did, what we had to, to be able to have this bona fide relationship together, in the same time zone...you know

[Nemeseax 36]

My husband and me have also been talking about that.

And we ( honestly) would be happy without any marriage, Green Card, anything ....just leave  us to enjoy the rest of our lives together peacefully. 

But life is not that simple- unfortunatelly. 

 

Edited April 30, 2018 by Nemeseax

[NikLR 13,230]

When you want to spend your life with someone, marriage is just a piece of paper.  It doesn't make the commitment more or less.  The issue is the goverment makes it infinitely harder to live together unless you are married.  

So no, it's not fraud.  I suppose if you truly thought marriage was somehow more of a commitment than a couple who are committed to each other I could see the other side.  But that's not my personal belief.  Ask the dude if he really thinks a marriage is the greater commitment.  I bet his answer is yes.  

[Unlockable 7,315]

1 hour ago, dazed'nconfused said:

It was a badly worded hypothetical - as in, if the couple in question (in this case, myself and my partner) were able to just live together, they'd be perfectly happy. 

If we were both able to live in the same place legally, we'd never be thinking marriage which one of my workmates says is "basically fraud." 

My thinking is more along the lines of fraud is someone paying a USC they don't know/aren't in a real relationship with to marry them for immigration, or someone targeting/scamming a USC - not a genuine couple getting married for a benefit - be it immigration, tax, insurance, housing or whatever. 

 

I just thought it might make for an interesting conversation. 

The way you are describing it, I wouldn't consider it fraud. If you are already in a committed relationship with someone and it is genuine then it would not be fraudulent to gain immigration benefits so you can continue to be together. Think about how many marriages occur because of unexpected pregnancies.

 

But we all know that marriages for benefit happens every day. Heck, there have been a few threads on VJ where the poster admitted to being married so they can immigrate.

[dazed'nconfused 14]

38 minutes ago, NikLR said:

When you want to spend your life with someone, marriage is just a piece of paper.  It doesn't make the commitment more or less.  The issue is the goverment makes it infinitely harder to live together unless you are married.  

So no, it's not fraud.  I suppose if you truly thought marriage was somehow more of a commitment than a couple who are committed to each other I could see the other side.  But that's not my personal belief.  Ask the dude if he really thinks a marriage is the greater commitment.  I bet his answer is yes.  

I think that's probably the case. He's very "old school" in a lot of his views (which is fine, not my thing, but it's his life) so it wouldn't surprise me. 

I'm glad that there seem to be more people on my side of this argument.  I honestly hate the idea of the government getting to open up my relationship and make judgements about how genuine it is - but I also accept that we have to choose between WHICH government does this (his or mine) if we want to be together.   I'm surprised to find in my research that the USA is actually a lot easier on evidence of a genuine relationship than Australia is for gaining permanent residency. 

 

1 hour ago, mrmvkjts said:

If my husband would be Austrian or I would be american and we could live in either place without getting married we probably would have never done it! 

We love each other, he is my best friend and of course it’s genuine and bona fide relationship, so I would not consider it fraud at all! We basically did, what we had to, to be able to have this bona fide relationship together, in the same time zone...you know

This is it exactly.   A friend of mine describes his partner as "the wife of my life" - they're not married, but they have been together very happily for the last 18 years and feel zero desire to change anything about it.  All I want to do is be able to wake up next to my partner every morning (or even just the majority of mornings, because he likes to go camping with his friends every now and then, and I like to go to the city with my girlfriends for museum & art gallery dates which he loathes) and not have to sit back and think about what time it is there before I call or text him.

[dazed'nconfused 14]

1 minute ago, NuestraUnion said:

The way you are describing it, I wouldn't consider it fraud. If you are already in a committed relationship with someone and it is genuine then it would not be fraudulent to gain immigration benefits so you can continue to be together. Think about how many marriages occur because of unexpected pregnancies.

 

But we all know that marriages for benefit happens every day. Heck, there have been a few threads on VJ where the poster admitted to being married so they can immigrate.

In fairness, that's how my parents got married     But they were together for 2 years before that, and 9 years after it (until my mother died - so it really was "til death do us part") so it's totally different than a younger couple accidentally pregnant after a short time I guess. 

 

[ms_bobdog 501]

It is no more a fraud than a marriage is. I have always thought that marriage is one of those things cooked up by humans to obtain benefits in some way or another anyway!  

[Illiria 980]

2 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

The curious part is that you state they are perfectly happy living together without marriage, but if they are a couple from two different countries living together in either one of their countries, the question is raised as to how the foreigner in this relationship gained residency to live together in the first place unless you are talking about one of the couple being living in a country illegally.

Well my husband is a dual national born in the US who grew up in the U.K., We moved to the US when he got a job here and if we had stayed in the UK we wouldn’t have married. Same as if we had moved to Canada as they allow partners of those with visas to get a dependent visa so long as they have lived together as a couple for two years prior to applying.

 

There are many ways where foreign spouses have lived together by other than marriage means in a country other than the US and wouldn’t have married until they needed to move to the US and the immigration laws of the US required marriage. 

[Ben&Zian 4,398]

ThInk in  a sense it's understandable. We would say probably the same thing. If, somehow we were able to just be together without the marriage (neither of us honestly ever thought of marriage at all before hand), we probably would just live together and be a couple; but that being said, understanding the process and what is "required", we had no issues at all of course getting married as we would have in a way considered ourselves as such anyways. The marriage part really is what makes I think people stick it out and figure out any issues or problem they have, where as people who are just "committed" or dating, probably tend to seperate quicker as it's "easier". We have had our issues and all with adjustment to life together; but we know we made that commitment to eachother when we married ot always work through things no matter how hard it was, and that makes us stronger together honestly. So I wouldn't change anything really about it all.

[Boiler 45,767]

Easy, no.

[geowrian 22,337]

I don't see it as fraud. Or at the very least, it's not immigration fraud. Immigration fraud involves bypassing (or attempting to bypass) immigration laws in order to seek an immigration benefit. Getting married because you want to physically be together in a relationship is using the process or it's intended purpose.