ImmigrationFraudVictims

Unfortunately, I have been victimized by a Russian woman seeking a green card. My wife came to the US in November of 2005, and we were married in January of 2006. She received her 2 year green card in August of 2006, and things started deteriorating between us around that same time. I won't go into all the details, but we began arguing more and more, usually about money or my son from a previous marriage. She seemed to have a way of pushing my buttons, trying to get me to react. There were times I sensed that she was trying to provoke me into hitting her, but I just dismissed the thoughts. Many times during an argument, she said she wanted to go back to Russia. Of course, I always told her that I didn't want this. I wanted her to stay and work through our problems. I attributed much of our trouble to cultural difference, language barriers(even though her English was excellent), and merging families. She has a daughter from a previous marriage. Both children are under 10.

We did go to a marriage counselor, and of course everything was my fault. She had a laundry list of everything I did wrong, what made her unhappy, and what I needed to do and change. She was unwilling to listen to me or to even consider that she had any role in our problems. Our counselor even told my wife that she needed to be less aggressive, and be willing to listen to my opinions and feelings. My wife totally ignored this. Even within the confines of our sessions, I felt like she was trying to provoke me into some sort of abuse. We had 5 sessions with the counselor, 3 together, and we each had one to ourselves. At the end of the fifth session, the counselor suggested we both seek individual counseling to address some personal issues she felt we needed to work on, and then come back for additional marriage counseling.

We never made it there. Less than a month later, in April of 2007, we had back to back nights of arguments, which in retrospect, were pretty stupid to have even argued over. The first night, I felt stronger than ever that she was trying to get me to strike her. She was on her knees in front of me, begging my forgiveness for being such a bad slave! Of course, I never hit her. That is not who I am. I told her at that point, that I could not live this way any longer. Maybe it was time that I grant what she wants. If she wants to return to Russia, so be it. I will send her back. I know that was a poor choice of words, but I only repeated what she said many times. She told me that I would be sorry. We had another argument the next night, but I took my son and left for awhile. That was really the last time we spoke.

The very next day, at 10pm on a Thursday night, I was presented with a domestic protection order by the county sherriff. I had to leave my house immediately. In this order, she accused me of beating her, abusing her physically and mentally, and threatening to kill her. None of these are true! It is important to note, that this took place aprroximately one month after the last marriage counseling session, and these abuses and threats were not mentioned to the counselor.

We were in court the next week, and of course the protection order was denied because there was no evidence of abuse. She had no pictures, no trips to the doctor or emergency room, no 911 calls, no neighbor complaints, no witnesses. The police had never been called to our home. I returned home to find she had changed the locks. After a locksmith let me in, I found that she had packed most of her and her daughter's belongings and moved out. She knew the order would not stick. I was relieved that she had not cleaned my house out.

Once I settled back in, I started to do some investigating. I signed into our computer, and removed her password via the admin function of Windows. I found that she had made copies of all her files and documents, and then deleted them. She did a pretty good job of erasing them too. I then went into internet explorer, and realized she had not thought to erase her tracks there. I looked at her recent browsing history, and found a Russian dating site. I went to this site, and she had been there the day before, so she was still logged in. I printed her profile, a page which showed men's profiles she had viewed, which had dates she had viewed them, and even was able to print emails she had received from men. I was pretty devastated when these dates showed she had been doing this since before and during our marriage counseling. One of the emails, which implied she had expressed a lot of interest in this one man, was dated the same day we had our first big argument before the protection order was issued. I was also able to look at her cookie history, and this showed that she had been visiting other dating sites since before we were even married!

She has since filed for divorce, and we have been to mediation, a Pende Lite hearing, and a settlement conference. At the PL hearing, I was ordered to pay her an exorbitant amount of temporary alimony every month, as well as paying for the auto insurance on the car she drives, and to continue paying for health and dental insurance. At the mediation and settlement conference, she and her lawyer made outrageous demands. Of course my lawyer and I did not agree to their demands, and we are now scheduled to go before a judge to resolve our divorce later this summer.

The past year has been pure hell. This is physically, emotionally, and mentally draining. I feel like an idiot. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen. In the beginning of our relationship, I was on the lookout for signs of a scam. When none surfaced, I thought I had found true love. I was not even aware of the scam I have fallen victim to until it was too late.

I know in the grand scheme of things, my situation is not that dire, especially when compared to the stories I have seen and heard. I have spent several thousand dollars in legal fees, with more to come, as well as giving several thousand more to my wife. I lost a few friends, that chose to believe my wife, without even listening to what I had to say. Who really needs friends like this anyway? The people that really know me have stood beside me and supported me. I still have my house, only because I refused to give in to my wife's demand that I place her name on the title of the house without putting her on the mortgage as well. Most importantly, the relationship with my son has become strong again. Until this happened, I didn't fully realize how unhappy he had been, and how my wife had been using him to create friction in our home.

The current system that our government has in place needs to be fixed. It is totally unacceptable that a foreign spouse can make false allegations of abuse against his/her American citizen spouse, and then be rewarded with a fast lane to a green card. We are not even allowed an opportunity to defend ourselves against these allegations with the USCIS. It is time for change!

Just thought I would post an update. I go to court in 6 days for my divorce. Hopefully, I will come out of this better than I am going into it. I am extremely anxious, yet fairly confident things will go my way. It has been a long and tiresome journey to this point, so I will be glad to get it over with.

I have no false expectations that the USCIS will send her home. I full expect her to receive her permanent green card in the next month or so. I have accepted this, although I am not happy with it.

Once I am divorced, and celebrate Independence Day like never before, I will be ready to refocus my efforts to this website and our cause.

Good luck on your divorce.

Do you know if your wife has been granted a VAWA visa or has been allowed to stay pending VAWA adjudication?

I ask because I have a further question:

Have you run into security problems boarding planes?

I have been getting four S's on my tickets on every flight I've taken since my ex did VAWA. I'm routed for special searching when I come into the USA on international flights.

I'd like to know if other VAWA abused ex's are getting the same treatment.

If so, that is a harm directed towards a class of people who have had no opportunity to defend themselves, a real harm that could make a class action suit successful.

Again, best wishes on the divorce. Hope your stomach holds up when you see your ex.

I had a TSA woman at a connecting flight check point (4 years ago) ask me if I knew I had a protective order placed on me (expired 3 years ago). Another fellow I know with the same situation as mine had the same thing happen to him. I have had special searching since then but not in every instance. All of this for domestic flights. Apparently we are being put into a national data base as potentially dangerous people that need to be watched.

- Apparently we are being put into a national data base as potentially dangerous people that need to be watched.[/quote]


That's what we need to find out.

The theory behind not involving us in the VAWA petition is that no harm accrues to us if the ex gets the visa.

If actual harm does accrue to us then that is a constitutional violation.

I'm eventually interested in filing suit against the United States on this very narrow issue in an effort to get the VAWA process changed.

To all members, allow me to introduce myself. My name is John Sampson. I am a recently retired ICE agent with 27+ years of experience in the immigration law enforcement arena. I have investigated numerous marriage fraud schemes and VAWA fraud schemes over the years.

Russian women, among other nationalities, but most notably Russian and Eastern European women, are very adept at marriage fraud and filing false allegations of spousal abuse so as to get their I-360 self petitions approved by USCIS.

I've read on this message board that USCIS approves 50+% of all VAWA petitions. I hate to disabuse everyone, but the number is much higher. Say 95+%. The only I-360 petitions I've seen denied were for lack of providing additional documents that USCIS requested. There were two petitions that I know of that were denied due to lack of good moral character. However, the vast majority of I-360 self petitions based upon abuse are granted by USCIS and they are approved on little or no corroborating evidence supporting the allegation of abuse.

The system is designed to approve virtually every self petitioin and to remove almost every single ground of inadmissiblity that "ordinary" aliens need to overcome. False claim to US citizenship (a federal felony by the way)? No problem. The evil American abusive spouse forced the poor alien to falsely claim to being a US citizen. Unlwaful reentry after deportation (another federal felony)? Again, no problem for the same reason. Unlawful presence in the US? Not a problem. The evil American made you do it. Or you were forced to do it because you had nowhere else to go.

Any and every illegal action taken by an alien is attributable to the US citizen abusive spouse, without any evidence to support the belief necessary.

One US Attorney asked me the obvious question. If the alien spouse was truly abused, why would they want to stay here in the US if they were afraid of their abusive spouse? The answer, of course, was obvious. They were using the system to beat the system and to get their green card without the necessary obligation to do it legally. And no, they're not afraid of the so-called abusive spouse.

Isn't life grand?

John N. Sampson
Aurora, Colorado

I hope you got my PM John. It doesn't show on my sent files.

Hi Texan, Sorry to hear your story and the most sad part is unfairness towards real victims of fraud marriages.

As Turkued I wish you good luck.



Of course they're not afraid any abusive spouse because it plays well into the hands of such people whose real intention is only to get Green Card and stay in the country by all means and usually they know how to use the law and play the cards in their favor.

Thank you everyone.

The horrors of my divorce are behind me now. Well, almost since I still have 5 more alimony payments to go! I suspect that my ex has remarried now, but I haven't been able to find the smoking gun. She has moved to the other side of the country, and I suspect it is to be with the internet boyfriend that she was communicating with prior to filing the false abuse charges.

I hope that 2009 brings us all some peace of mind, and that we make some headway in our fight to fix this terrible, broken system.

Texan,

Will alimony be terminated or reduced if your ex-wife remarries or you have to continue to pay?

For exemple I found: New Jersey (2 years old information)

If the spouse who receives alimony remarries, then any permanent alimony award or term alimony will be terminated regardless of the parties’ financial circumstances. The rationale for this is because the supported spouse has entered into a new marital partnership, the former spouse is not required to financially support this new partnership. If the supported spouse’s new marriage fails, then she can’t later petition the court to reinstate the first husband’s alimony obligation.
http://www.divorcenet.com/states/new_je ... _reduction

It is my understanding that alimony ends when the spouse who is getting it remarries. I believe this is law in every state.

This applies in the state of Maryland. Alimony ends when the receiving spouse remarries. So, obviously, it benefits my ex if she stays under the radar.

Congratulations on your divorce. I think that you but not only you but all the victims on here if you guys have a good sufficient evidence of your ex's committing immigration fraud there is a number on the ICE.gov that you can call and start a case out of it. Those Russian bitches need to be out of here and punish for their crimes.