Trial begins on phony marriage immigration scams

As someone who is married to an immigrant, I hear things that others may not encounter. The last I heard the going rate for "marrying someone to get papers" in the Chicago area was about $10,000. As proof that we are truly becoming a color and ethnicity-blind society, that price is consistent among all nationalities.

New York is more expensive than Chicago, the price for similar arranged marriages is $16 grand. Since I've only been to NYC once, I don't know if the scams there have the same egalitarian spirit that Chicago enjoys.

From the New York Post:

Hundreds of immigrants gained permanent residency through a sophisticated scam that relied on a corrupt former U.S. immigration official, a prosecutor said yesterday at the start of a trial.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Wong accused the defendant, Peter Absolam, of being a salesman who helped people obtain immigration documents "based on fraud and deceit and lies."

In the scheme, U.S. citizens were paid to marry someone who otherwise could not qualify for permanent residency, the prosecutor said.

"Some met their spouse only once, some not at all," she said.

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