What is marriage fraud or a sham marriage?
A sham marriage is not valid for immigration purposes. A sham marriage is where the couple gets married solely for the purposes of circumventing immigration laws. Normally, the parties to a sham marriage have no intention of having a bona fide marriage and live together as a real married couple. The only purpose of getting married is to try and get around the immigration laws. The penalties for marriage fraud are quite steep. The maximum penalty is 5 years imprisonment and up to $250,000 penalty. These days, we are seeing more enforcement activity and prosecution for marriage fraud. In the past, although the laws have existed, the was not much reported enforcement activity. The downside to entering into fake marriage is getting very high. People may think that they can get around the requirement and fool the USCIS. However, with the increasing sophistication of technology, it is getting easier and easier for the USCIS to detect marriage fraud. They can use simple review of DMV records
