IMBRA

[sunflower3 0]

I met my fiancee on a website. You don't have to pay a fee on the website but you can to see more profiles and contact people (rather than have them contact you.) People on the website are from all over the world (canada, us, australia, india, etc) but are of east indian origin. I marked off "yes" to the IMBRA question and gave them the website address and phycial address of the company that runs the site. Is this even an IMBRA? Also, do I need to do anything special because it is an IMBRA?

I am ready to fle excpet for this last piece! Any help would be greatly appreciated

I forgot to mention that no visa's have EVER been applied for before and there is no criminal records

[Turboguy 6]

Since neither of you payed to meet you probably could have answered no but I think it will not cause you a bit of problem one way or the other. I doubt if you will hear anything during the interview or at any time about it just based on how things have been handled so far.

Good luck in your journey. It is an amazing experience.

[sunflower3 0]

well we both had paid memberships to have more access........

Edited July 9, 2007 by sunflower3

[pushbrk 12,892]

I met my fiancee on a website. You don't have to pay a fee on the website but you can to see more profiles and contact people (rather than have them contact you.) People on the website are from all over the world (canada, us, australia, india, etc) but are of east indian origin. I marked off "yes" to the IMBRA question and gave them the website address and phycial address of the company that runs the site. Is this even an IMBRA? Also, do I need to do anything special because it is an IMBRA?

I am ready to fle excpet for this last piece! Any help would be greatly appreciated

I forgot to mention that no visa's have EVER been applied for before and there is no criminal records

Either way, you both paid the same and you both paid the same as other people from other countries. Apparently, the site's primary business is not to broker marriages between US Citizens and foreigners. I think your answer is fine and will cause you no problem. Based on current anecdotal data on USCIS and Consular procedures relative to IMBRA, it seems to make no difference whether you answer yes or no to this question.

My personal opinion is that the correct answer in your case, is no. The site fits an exception to the IMB definition.

[MidnightinMoscow 0]

When one looks at it that way, there are almost no websites that are set up to broker marriages between Americans and foreigners. The only one I can think of is Encounters, which is the bane of the feminist Tahirih Justice Center and which is located outside of Washington DC and fixes government employees up with wives. They charge $1800 to the men and nothing to the women.

Most websites allow the women to pay to initiate contact if they want to...but they never want to except when they are over 40 and they are on a site like EHarmony which will fix them up with a man their age who is too politically correct to date someone younger on another site.

Other sites like www.aforeignaffair.com and www.blossoms.com do not broker marriages and, consequently, the latter refuses to call itself a marriage broker and comply with IMBRA. A Foreign Affair is enjoying IMBRA status because it encourages men to travel to meet foreigners at parties overseas...it being so difficult if not impossible to contact women who do not have email when IMBRA is complied with (massive violation of the right to assemble).

The two sites above introduce women from Russia and Asia to men from every other country in the world, not just the USA.

But that is hardly brokering marriages. It is introducing people.

Contacting someone hardly costs much money at all on most dating sites. In fact, the trend is for dating sites to be free with advertising paying the bills.

Almost no international dating website in the world, especially Match.com and Adultfriendfinder.com, that caters to women under 30 forces the women to pay unless they want to initiate contact. To be sure, both of these multinational sites are internationally oriented. You could argue that the main customers of these sites are American men...and soon the bulk of the women they will be meeting will be foreigners as these websites expand their markets after the social globalization trend.

Obviously, A Foreign Affair can simply allow the foreign women to pay to intitiate contact in order to be excluded from IMB status...but as I said above, AFA is enjoying IMBRA because it seems to be forcing the men to make expensive tours with them instead of buying an address for $12 as in the past.

Edited July 25, 2007 by MidnightinMoscow

[pushbrk 12,892]

When one looks at it that way, there are almost no websites that are set up to broker marriages between Americans and foreigners. The only one I can think of is Encounters, which is the bane of the feminist Tahirih Justice Center and which is located outside of Washington DC and fixes government employees up with wives. They charge $1800 to the men and nothing to the women.

Most websites allow the women to pay to initiate contact if they want to...but they never want to except when they are over 40 and they are on a site like EHarmony which will fix them up with a man their age who is too politically correct to date someone younger on another site.

Other sites like www.aforeignaffair.com and www.blossoms.com do not broker marriages and, consequently, the latter refuses to call itself a marriage broker and comply with IMBRA. A Foreign Affair is enjoying IMBRA status because it encourages men to travel to meet foreigners at parties overseas...it being so difficult if not impossible to contact women who do not have email when IMBRA is complied with (massive violation of the right to assemble).

The two sites above introduce women from Russia and Asia to men from every other country in the world, not just the USA.

But that is hardly brokering marriages. It is introducing people.

Contacting someone hardly costs much money at all on most dating sites. In fact, the trend is for dating sites to be free with advertising paying the bills.

Almost no international dating website in the world, especially Match.com and Adultfriendfinder.com, that caters to women under 30 forces the women to pay unless they want to initiate contact. To be sure, both of these multinational sites are internationally oriented. You could argue that the main customers of these sites are American men...and soon the bulk of the women they will be meeting will be foreigners as these websites expand their markets after the social globalization trend.

Obviously, A Foreign Affair can simply allow the foreign women to pay to intitiate contact in order to be excluded from IMB status...but as I said above, AFA is enjoying IMBRA because it seems to be forcing the men to make expensive tours with them instead of buying an address for $12 as in the past.

Yes, in general, internet dating websites are not International Marriage Brokers because they fit one or more of the exceptions. It's a really poorly written law.

[Tristan 0]

I'm not sure it would be possible to know whether the likes of Match.com's primary business is between US citizens and foreigners without an audit, which is not something an ordinary customer can perform. Even trying to count the numbers of US customers and foreign customers listed on their site won't answer the question definitively because Match and others sometimes leave up profiles after the customer is no longer active. Also, their business goals and customers could change from time to time.

In any event, it would be up to DHS to determine whether or not they or any other matchmaking services are IMBs, something that seems like a difficult task. Indeed, when and if the government ever does start turning people down for visas based on the particular service that they used to meet for non-compliance with IMBRA, I can comfortably predict that they will be flooded with lawsuits from those who were turned down.

Maybe the thought of burdening their staff with such suits has weighed into their decision thus far not to deny any visa requests based on non-compliance with the law.