If your wife uses you only for a green card, would that be grounds for annulment?

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Lily_Bernans said:
As a French-American who’s lived in Holland, France, and Switzerland, I saw plenty of men and women both who wanted to marry an American, or a Swiss, just so they could get citizenship. Switzerland is filled with Swiss in unhappy marriages to Russian women. Unhappy because the wife does not really love them.
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Oh heck, they are consummate actresses too, knowing when to turn on the waterworks!
 
zamyrabyrd said:
Oh heck, they are consummate actresses too, knowing when to turn on the waterworks!
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It’s the Swiss men who are unhappy. The Russian women are happy they got out of Russia and got a rich, Swiss husband! 😉
 
zamyrabyrd said:
In this case, it is a big joke, because the guy is not rich at all,
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Some are, some are not. Even the rich ones don’t have to pay much alimony to a wife they haven’t been married to long. Not if she’s young enough to get a job.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
This is a problem I’m weary of when dating international, especially online.

If that were to happen, would I pretty much be out of luck, or could I just get an annulment since that seems like a fraudulent action?
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Hello,

More technically, “total simulation” is an actual “ground” for a declaration of nullity. Your question is boiled down to the point of evaporation but that is what you are talking about: a person who goes through a wedding ceremony for the purpose of something totally extrinsic to marriage (citizenship or legal status in a particular country). Marriage itself is actually excluded.

To say you can “just get an annulment” is pretty simplistic. Your hypothetical self could certainly apply. With sufficient proof that the other person actually excluded marriage, it would be granted.

Dan
 
GEddie said:
It worked in the past.

Methinks the OP saw that old episode of “Love Boat.”

It was because the law was being so flagrantly abused that it was changed.

ICXC NIKA
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I wouldn’t use the "Love Boat’ as proof. The old cliche “marrying for a greencard) is STILL being used as a story line in TV shows soaps and movies. At the time of the Love Boat I had friends who were going thrugh this. The husband was a born in Michigan American. The wife was born in Canada came here for education and they married. She did get her residency but it was not automatic just because she was married
I have another friend born in Canada and raised here who still has to jump through hoopls *she went back to Canada for a family funeral and almost wasn’t allowed back”
I am not expert but I would think that if this were true though that it would be that one party had no real intention of entering into a valid marriage. So if this could be proved then I think it could be anulled. Proof might be difficult
 
marytk said:
I wouldn’t use the "Love Boat’ as proof. The old cliche “marrying for a greencard) is STILL being used as a story line in TV shows soaps and movies. At the time of the Love Boat I had friends who were going thrugh this. The husband was a born in Michigan American. The wife was born in Canada came here for education and they married. She did get her residency but it was not automatic just because she was married
I have another friend born in Canada and raised here who still has to jump through hoopls *she went back to Canada for a family funeral and almost wasn’t allowed back”
Code: 
 I am not expert but I would think that if this were true though that it would be that one party had no real intention of entering into a valid marriage.  So if this could be proved then I think it could be anulled. Proof might be difficult
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Once a person gets his or her temporary green card he or she cannot leave the US until the permanent card is granted. If he or she does, he or she could be, and usually is, denied a permanent green card.
 
Lily_Bernans said:
Once a person gets his or her temporary green card he or she cannot leave the US until the permanent card is granted. If he or she does, he or she could be, and usually is, denied a permanent green card.
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This woman has been here for over 40 years. It was her mistake than her green card had expired. It was a big deal coming back here. It worked out I don’t understand why but she said she was denied citizenship. She is married to an American and has American kids. (grown up)
It is just an example to me that it is not just a quick and easy thing to do. even though it seems to have worked for some it isnot guarentee
 
marytk said:
This woman has been here for over 40 years. It was her mistake than her green card had expired. It was a big deal coming back here. It worked out I don’t understand why but she said she was denied citizenship. She is married to an American and has American kids. (grown up)
It is just an example to me that it is not just a quick and easy thing to do. even though it seems to have worked for some it isnot guarentee
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I think every case is unique. Citizenship was quick and easy for several people I know, difficult for others.
 
Lily_Bernans said:
Yes, you are right. However, the poster is asking about annulment.

Deceit could be difficult-to-impossible for the spouse to prove, but if they were not married in the Church the annulment could be granted on the basis of form, or so said our canon lawyer member on another thread. I, myself, don’t know that much about annulment. I took one class in Canon Law, and most of it did not focus on annulment. One doesn’t learn a whole lot in only one class, but it was required.🤷

I agree with your question. People who are concerned about someone marrying just for a green card should avoid international dating. The answer is as simple and easy as you’ve stated.
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In the case in bold it wouldn’t even be an annulment since there is no presumption of validity if there is lack of form without a dispensation.
 
Lily_Bernans said:
As a French-American who’s lived in Holland, France, and Switzerland, I saw plenty of men and women both who wanted to marry an American, or a Swiss, just so they could get citizenship. Switzerland is filled with Swiss in unhappy marriages to Russian women. Unhappy because the wife does not really love them.

I agree with what you say.
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I hear Swiss citizenship is particularly difficult to get.
 
Sarcelle said:
I hear Swiss citizenship is particularly difficult to get.
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It can be. If you marry a Swiss, it is incredibly easy. Just live there five years and it’s yours. If you are not married to a Swiss, it takes 12 years, I think, but it’s easier to get than US citizenship when not married to a citizen. Mostly wealthy people from Germany and France live in Switzerland because the tax rates are so much better there.
 
Darryl_Revok said:
Come on, you have to know what you’re getting into when you engage in international dating. Say you sign up to meet some beautiful Russian woman. If she wanted a guy with handsome looks and sparkling personality, then there’s nothing preventing her from finding some handsome/witty Russian guy out there. The only reason she’s going to hook up with some несчастли́вый я́нки is for the possibility of American citizenship. Thinking otherwise is kind of naive.
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That might be true. But you can’t convince me that the pudgy 50 something is marrying the buxom 20 something for her personality either. If all he wanted was a woman with a sparking personality he could find that at home.
 
I don’t think it’s as easy to “marry for a green card” as shown on fictional TV shows. But there’s a RL story about Anastasia Solovieva, an 18 year old “mail order bride” from Kyrgystan, who was murdered by her American husband, Indle King. Apparently, he was abusive, but she was planning on staying with him until she got her green card, then divorce him. Unfortunately, he murdered her before that. 😦

people.com/people/archive/article/0,20135243,00.html

Some of the stories about this case (such as the dramatized version on Investigation Discovery’s “Web of Lies” TV program) make it out that this was always her plan, that she married him just to get a green card and planned from the start to divorce him as soon as she got that wish. Others make it out that she really did try to make the marriage work at first, but couldn’t due to her husband’s abusive nature.

The “Web of Lies” show actually had her husband, Indle King, played by a much older actor than the real King (who was 36, but the show version looked at least 50 or older), likely to make the victim more sympathetic in comparison. But it does chronicle her infidelity with another man, refusal to have sex with her husband, etc. Of course none of that justifies her murder, and King himself was cheating on her with a man who later helped to murder her, and even trolling for a new bride on the Net while still married to her. But I admit I had a real hard time sympathizing with the victim.

Note that even if it’s not actually THAT easy to get a green card, it’s certainly possible that Anastasia thought it would be. I certainly get the feeling that if the marriage had ended in divorce not murder, and Anastasia had later converted to the Catholic Church, or even just met up with a Catholic man who wanted to marry her, that she’d have little trouble having that marriage annulled leaving her free to marry in the Church.
 
Burt_Macklin said:
That might be true. But you can’t convince me that the pudgy 50 something is marrying the buxom 20 something for her personality either. If all he wanted was a woman with a sparking personality he could find that at home.
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👍
 
ToeInTheWater said:
I don’t think it’s as easy to “marry for a green card” as shown on fictional TV shows. But there’s a RL story about Anastasia Solovieva, an 18 year old “mail order bride” from Kyrgystan, who was murdered by her American husband, Indle King. Apparently, he was abusive, but she was planning on staying with him until she got her green card, then divorce him. Unfortunately, he murdered her before that. 😦
…
Note that even if it’s not actually THAT easy to get a green card, it’s certainly possible that Anastasia thought it would be. I certainly get the feeling that if the marriage had ended in divorce not murder, and Anastasia had later converted to the Catholic Church, or even just met up with a Catholic man who wanted to marry her, that she’d have little trouble having that marriage annulled leaving her free to marry in the Church.
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One of the first projects that I worked on was on the Tengiz field in Kazakhstan. There were so many engineers that left that project with beautiful Kazakh wives. The marriages that I saw seemed like that they were entered into with the intention of making it work. I’m sure that the prospect of leaving Kazakhstan was a big plus for the woman the same way I’m sure that youth and beauty was a big plus for the men. I would be curious as to how a tribunal would rule in the much more likely case that the green card is a motivation but not the only, or even main, motivation. I presume that being motivated in part by wealth and beauty aren’t going to automatically invalidate a marriage.
 
Burt_Macklin said:
One of the first projects that I worked on was on the Tengiz field in Kazakhstan. There were so many engineers that left that project with beautiful Kazakh wives. The marriages that I saw seemed like that they were entered into with the intention of making it work. I’m sure that the prospect of leaving Kazakhstan was a big plus for the woman the same way I’m sure that youth and beauty was a big plus for the men. I would be curious as to how a tribunal would rule in the much more likely case that the green card is a motivation but not the only, or even main, motivation. I presume that being motivated in part by wealth and beauty aren’t going to automatically invalidate a marriage.
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Since poor Anastasia is dead we’ll never know whether she planned from the start to leave her husband after the green card came through, or not. And just because she cheated after marriage doesn’t mean she didn’t intend to be faithful when she first married. However, Indle King also misrepresented the extent of his wealth and connections, and I do know that “spouse lied about A, and if he’d told the truth about A, I wouldn’t have married him” is also grounds for annulment.

It just seems that particular marriage would have had many grounds for annulment, not just the green card issue. I agree that “marrying for reasons other than romantic love” is not, by itself, grounds for annulment, since marrying primarily for romantic love is fairly “modern”.

Although, though some more conservative CAF posters seem to believe this, this is not to say that “love marriages” did not exist at all “way back when”. One of the earliest surviving “Valentines” is from Margery Brews, found in the collection of the Paston letters from the 15th century. Margery certainly seemed to be sincerely in love with her suitor, though the other letters in that collection discuss her dowry and other less romantic aspects of the courtship. There’s even a romance across class lines, one of the Paston’s servants secretly married one of their daughters, causing her to become disinherited. (Way before the time period of the fictional Branson-Sybil marriage in Downtown Abbey, that many conservatives claim is “anachronistic”.)
 
I think it should also be pointed out that many men who marry younger women from other countries are also under the impression such women are more “submissive” and easier to control than a “liberated” Western woman. Maybe not as much the former USSR, but certainly among those who seek out women from Asian countries for marriage. And many assume that since they have more financial resources and life experience than the woman, that will also make it easy for them to control her. To me, this aspect of it is even more disturbing than the idea of wanting a younger woman because of her looks.

I think this kind of approach to marriage is just as questionable in terms of validity, as that of a scheming foreign woman who marries an American man just for the sake of a green card planning on divorcing as soon as she gets it.

ETA: Should also point out that there are also a fair number of MEN who run marriage scams for immigration benefits. One my mother’s female friends fell victim to such a con artist.
 
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