With the country's renewed focus on immigration laws, feds have been stepping up their crackdown on folks getting married for Green Cards. However, more often it seems that legitimate couples are being accused of having sham marriages. The New York Times reports on the marriage of Shari Feldman and Inderjit Singh, which is still being questioned after 17 years of happiness and fidelity. Singh came to the country illegally in 1992, but the two have been going strong since their marriage in 1993. However, they've been unable to convince immigration officials that their marriage is legitimate after five interviews.
Feldman wrote in protest, “If I was, in fact, fraudulently married to my husband for the purposes of obtaining a green card for him, would I have continued to file over and over and over again? If my husband only married me to obtain a green card, I am sure he would have left me many years ago and found a wife that would fit the U.S.C.I.S.’s idea of what a couple should be." But the USCIS refuses to hear their case again, since they apparently gave conflicting answers to things like what they did for Feldman's birthday, or how much rent they pay. (Feldman said $677.17, Sing said "about $700.") Petitions by 20,507 citizens were denied last year, though only 506 were for fraud. The rest were for interview discrepancies (could you pass the test?) or failure to show up for an interview.
Their lawyer insists that Singh's suspicious answers are due to his poor memory, caused when he was hit in the head with a gun during a robbery of a candy store where he used to work. He also seemed estranged from Feldman's family, though Feldman's sister said, "I can't stand him. They have a marriage, I know that. He probably got the questions wrong because he’s an idiot." At least he's straight!
