If the woman’s goal is simply to get pregnant trying for the “anchor baby” play, she sure doesn’t need her uncle, or “uncle”, to try to procure a co-worker (our OP) who happens to be married and whose marital status is probably known to the uncle/“uncle”. All she needs is any random horny dude. Even a fellow immigrant of dubious legality will work fine for that. And she can probably find some of those on her own.
True. But why not aim higher? If you’re going to have a baby, avoid random guys who might slap you around or disappear. How about a guy who could financially support the baby?
I’ve only had a few encounters with criminals. The old saying is that you should set a thief to catch a thief and that sounds accurate. Since I’m not a criminal, I can’t predict their motives, actions, objectives, and so on. They know how to gain your confidence and before you know it, they’ve taken advantage of you. I’ll pass.
Yes. It’s a scam, and long term it would turn into a royal pain the arse. I advise that you politely say no.
The Canadian-born son of a colleague did enter into a sham wedding in order to get a US Visa. He had gone to school in the US and wanted to stay. He knew the woman and they did live together for a few months. They were questioned pretty thoroughly at the hearing (“What color are your spouse’s underpants?” was one question) but passed. They divorced and he remarried and has a career (he is a lawyer) and children and a thoroughly normal life. That was all about 40 years ago and it might not go so easily now.
If it’s a scam it’s pretty lame. I can’t believe there’s any upside to this though.
Heh. If the previous sham marriage came to the bar’s attention, I wonder if there’d be repercussions.
Yeah, it could be the opener for a wide variety of stuff, quite apart from the presented story - setup for blackmail, for example, or any number of things that require an innocent victim to be lured somewhere. The fact that the OP has known the guy 10 years doesn’t rule this out - after all, 10 years didn’t rule out ‘will you date my niece please’, so all bets are off.
There is something called a fiance/fiancee visa, but that requires the fiance/fiancee to be out of the country and they must marry their sponsor within 90 days after entry to the US.
I still say the biggest problem is that the OP is exposing himself to potential charges. Whether the coworker wants a reason for his niece (or his “niece”) to stay legally, or whether he’s trying to entrap people for the feds, or whatever… This guy is not worth the cost of a lawyer should things go to trial.
So you date her for a while and then she asks you to com to INS and say you plan to marry her - would that be a better time to bail on the plan? Best to stay out of it.
The other possibility is that the coworker is the dupe, and his niece has a more extended plan; also, there’s the possibility both coworker and niece have used internet advice on how she can stay in the country, and so have seriously misunderstood the country’s laws.
One of the big problems with a boyfriend/girlfriend arriving from outside the country is that Immigration will grill them seriously on arrival if they even mention a romantic relationship, because they suspect the person is planning to arrive and never leave… I can’t see there being any legal exception for foreigners hoping to overstay their visa in the same situation.
(BTW - China has an analogous problem I was reading the The Economist - for some reason, there’s a shortage of marriageable age women in China. Apparently there are Vietnamese women who will come to China and marry a man for a fee. With of course the predictable result. A few months after once the fee was paid, the woman disappears - possibly to try a repeat performance with another rich horny dupe.)
What charges are there if he bones her for a while and never gets married? Marriage was never part of the coworker’s proposal.
I’m thinking she’s going to introduce @Asuka to the exotic scintillating field of MLM. That would explain why it’s such a lame sounding scam.
Worst.First.Date.Ever.
Unless they get married and use their marriage to get her permanent resident status in the US, there’s no immigration fraud taking place - so no charges.
This was my first thought as well. And I still think the best explanation is that it is the co-worker that is being scammed. Does the co-worker really have a niece? Even if he does, is he sure that the alleged niece is really his actual niece? Even if it is his actual niece, maybe she’s trying to scam her uncle.
I hope your “for some reason” was intended ironically.
There is zero mystery for why there’s a shortage of marriagable women. Year, decades in fact, of sex-selective abortions in favor of boys have produced the predictable result: lots more men than women of similar ages.
Sex-selective infanticide has been with humanity since forever. But the ready availability to know the sex well pre-birth has greatly lowered the “barrier to entry” to ensuring your kid is a desirable male / heir / profit center, not an undesirable female / cost center. Humans are right assholes in large groups, and modern tech is not much helping us outgrow that.
Yes, humor is whoosh on some…
I am hoping the laws of economics apply, and the problem will self-correct over the next generation or two.
AFAIK, by contrast the whole green card marriage thing seems to be equal opportunity.
But he says he’s not single.
My son-in-law is German, and when he applied for his visa they asked for all sorts of documentation of a long term relationship before he and my daughter were married. The son of a friend married a Russian (a doctor, not mail order) and they needed even more documentation.
I’d bet that Canada and Germany - neither places where people are knocking down the embassy door to get here - have it easier than some.
A friend of mine was a civil engineer and was in the Philippines on a two year construction product. This would have been in the 90s. He met a local woman and started dating her. He was told the he needed to document every step of their dating. If it didn’t work out, no big deal just throw the stuff away. If it did work out, he’d have a way easier time. He ended up with a huge file of pictures and stuff like receipts for movies that they saw. They got married and had kids in the US.
There’s a better option for the ‘niece’ now anyway: Just go to Mexico and walk across the U.S. border. All the cool kids are doing it. They’ll give you a card with a number to call when you are settled so you can arrange for a green card and a free bus or plane ride to a city. I know of some Canadians who have talked about doing that instead of following the onerous legal process.
But yeah, there’s an old saying that you can’t con an honest man. Any offer that requires you to break the law or that offers some kind of unusually large compensation in return for some sletchy behaviour should have alarm bells ringing in your head. Avoid like the plague.