Twenty-two people were charged in an immigration marriage scheme after an Arlington County clerk discovered an unusual pattern of quickie marriages, according to U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg.
Investigators believe that the operation may have resulted in 1,000 fraudulent marriages in Alexandria, Washington, and Maryland, all to allow illegal immigrants to stay in the United States legally.
“U.S. citizenship is precious, and, for those who come to our country from abroad, must be earned and not purchased,” Rosenberg said.
The 22 were charged with either arranging sham marriages, marrying someone to allow them to stay in the country or taking money to become a spouse of someone. Most of those charged were from Ghana.
The three-year-long investigation found that a facilitator would introduce immigrants to United States citizens to enter a sham marriage, according to the indictment that was unsealed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Thursday. The immigrants would pay up to $6,000.
The facilitatorcoached the couples about how to answer questions during interviews with U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services. Couples were told to memorize the name of their sham spouse, take photos of the themselves together, make up stories about how they met and what side of the bed they slept.
Nine of those charged are alleged to have arranged the marriage, 10 are immigrants who had entered into a false marriage and three were U.S. citizens who married immigrants.
One of the U.S. citizens had been a convicted felon, another had been a sex offender, according to the indictment.
