Challenging Marriage Fraud Allegations in Court
Was your green card petition denied because the officer thought your marriage was a sham?
Were you thrown into removal proceedings after your conditional green card expired because your spouse would not show to your interview?
Immigrants and their spouses often come to us for help after they have tried to file their case themselves, went to the green card interview or conditional green card removal interview only to be accused of marriage fraud because they were unprepared to answer tough questions or did not realize the extent of documentation the government wants to see to legitimate a relationship. CIS will issue a Notice to Appear (NTA) and place the immigrant in removal proceedings for marriage fraud. Refusing to fight an allegation of marriage fraud can not only lead to your deportation, but could bar you from ever being able to benefit from another family-based immigrant visa petition if you subsequently remarried or had a parent sponsor you. Marriage fraud must be fought if you want to stay in the U.S.
If a formal finding of marriage fraud is made by the agency, this can be very difficult to overcome and the right lawyer for the job can make a huge difference. It’s important to work with an attorney who will develop successful strategies to overcome fraud allegations that may be founded on an immigration officer’s faulty legal reasoning or their misunderstanding of, or cultural hostility toward, your family life. If you work with SGG, your attorney will work with you and your spouse to strategize about how to best document and explain your life together to demonstrate to the Immigration Judge that your marriage is genuine and help fight any allegations of fraud by ICE trial counsel in court. We often work with couples who have nontraditional marriages, such as where one spouse lives in another location for school, work, or family reasons, and does not see their spouse on a daily basis. We also work with students and the modern couple, those who don’t have tons of joint documents or have not commingled their finances to the satisfaction of DHS due to personal, business, tax, or family trust reasons, for example. We often work with divorced immigrants who can no longer rely on the cooperation of their spouse and thus, feel overwhelmed in how to document the bona fide nature of their relationship. Let us help you think outside the box in overcoming the presumption that you have committed marriage fraud if you end up in deportation proceedings due to a denied immigrant visa, expired conditional green card, or denied petition remove the condition on your residency.
SGG’s family and removal team of attorneys are well-known in the area of marriage fraud, waivers, and removal defense. Our attorneys’ work has been published by major bar associations, state bars, and major news outlets on marriage immigration issues and we are often called upon to help other attorneys learn how to fight for their clients when the marriage is in question by teaching conditional legal education courses for attorneys for major national and local bar associations. Get the right team on your side.