Long story short, coworker at a company I’ve known for 10 years and speak to him every day randomly asked me if I was single. I’m not, but I decided to humor him because I know a few guys who might be interested and since I respect him I always wanted to do him a favor. He told me he has a niece who’s 26 and has just completed college in the United States, but was only over temporarily on a visa and now has to return back to her home country in the next couple of months. She wants to stay in the United States to be with her family members that are already here.
Basically he wanted me to date her to “help her stay in the country” and claimed that I didn’t have to marry her to keep her in the country. But everything I know about immigration, you WOULD have to marry a foreign national over here on a VISA to keep them around right? You can’t just date a non-citizen and they just get to stay here? I’m really weirded out about the whole thing, what I thought was just some friendly matchmaking seems like it’s really an excuse for a “green card scam marriage” but my coworker is lying through his teeth about it.
Is there a way to actually keep someone in the country by dating them? Or is this just a marriage scam?
It’s possible your coworker is unclear on the law and not intentionally trying to trick you. But yeah, only marriage is recognized. Also, marrying someone for immigration status only is fraud, and not something I would recommend doing as a favor. Now, if you were to go on a date with someone knowing they needed a green card and figuring you’d like to help them out if you could do it honestly, and then discovering you really were a match, and getting married for that reason, well, that’d be cool all around.
Yeah, someone would have to marry her for this to work and they aren’t ignorant of the fact people will marry someone about to lose legal residency as a sham. They will extensively investigate a marriage to make sure it isn’t a fraud, there will be interviews, in detail questions etc.
I was a character reference (attestor of good faith? sincerity verifier? whatever it’s called) one time for a recently married couple of my acquaintance who were relocating to the wife’s native country. Immigration wanted confirmation that the marriage was genuine rather than a ploy to get citizenship for the husband, and they were VERY nosy about it.
Bear in mind also that if a sham marriage is exposed, the American citizen can be in far more legal trouble than the prospective immigrant, who usually just gets sent home.
This was my thought too. Plus, with a name like “Asuka” does that imply you are an ethnic extraction that is non-north-European? It’s possible that that your co-worker has gotten into legal trouble, and is being pressured by the feds to implicate people from his community in assorted crimes.
(It sounds stupid, but there have been cases where the FBI is being sued by foreigners who were threatened with consequences if they did not become informants spying on their community. In one case, the person could not leave the country because she was afraid she would not be readmitted even with a green card. Some were threatened with or actually were being put on the no-fly list unless they cooperated.)
It is a very good idea not to agree to do something illegal for people you barely know.
Yeah, but the o.p. is going to end up being the patsy that is blamed for the corpse on his couch, or worse, he’ll be the floater they pull out of the East Hudson. You want to be the Bogart character that is two steps ahead of everyone else and slapping the henchman. Pass.
A US native woman I know married an immigrant in a sham marriage some 40 years ago. They were just friends and both knew exactly what they were doing; the only entity being conned was Uncle Sam’s immigrations department.
After the requisite time period they divorced and to this day are still good friends albeit from across the country. Nothing bad ever came of it to either of them.
In the US’s fevered world of today ref race and immigration, and with the Feds greatly increased computer capability, the same story might have a very different ending. Little more can be said in FQ.
I am aware of one undocumented immigrant who was subjected to a deportation hearing and was ultimately allowed to remain in the US because they had strong community ties. They had been here many years, had children born here, had steady employment, had a lot of people submit letters of support to the court, and so on.
If your coworker’s niece were ever the subject of a deportation hearing for overstaying her visa, dating a US citizen might be viewed as one community tie, but I would expect quite a bit more than that would be required to forestall deportation.
It’s not clear whether that’s the sort of thing your coworker had in mind. Have you asked him what he means by “help her stay in the country”? Also, what’s the niece’s long-term plan? There are plenty of US employers in the agriculture and meat-packing industries who will look the other way when it comes to citizenship or a green card for low-level wage slaves, but if she’s looking for the kind of job that requires a college degree, I suspect it’ll be hard to find someone who will hire her unless she’s fully authorized to work in the US.
I’m thinking, if you step into this, things will progress to, ‘just pretend you’re engaged for a while!’, and from there to being forced into marriage under threat of it being revealed you were ‘part of the scheme’ all along!
What if this woman gets you drunk then comes on super hard and manages to seduce you? Or just claims she did, after you pass out? Then claims to be carrying your child?
I’d run far, run fast away from any entanglement.
Good Luck!
My radar is pinging that -
It’s not the work friend’s “niece”, it’s his side piece. He’s otherwise married.
She was never a student, instead came into the country on a tourist visa and then melted into the background.
She (and he) fear that she is in imminent danger of being caught, else why bring it up?
So, yeah, run! But, in the meantime, have fun following his/her story.
Sorry if I missed it upthread but what country would she be returning to? A war-torn place? I would have some sympathy for that—not that I’d involve myself, but OP mentions respecting the person pitching the idea.
If “niece” is 26, what degree did she get? A PhD? Why didn’t she find an American husband while she was in school so she would be all set (upon graduation)?
