What are the legal consequences if someone gets married so they will not be deported?

Answer 1

It depends entirely on whether or not the Immigration Service determines if the marriage was "real" or not. That is, was the marriage between a genuine couple, or are the couple not actually in a relationship.

If this sounds a little fuzzy, it is. The concept of "marriage fraud", whereby two people marry solely so that one may gain favorable immigration status, is hard to define, and thus is very subjective in assessment.

Here are the two common cases, one legal, one illegal:

It is legal, if, the two people have been dating for some time, and can show that their relationship has appears to be based on a mutual affection (i.e. things like taking vacations together, living together, etc.) and/or that they have been functioning as most people would define a "couple" (sharing expenses, attending events together, etc.), and such activities have been going on for at least a reasonable amount of time (this is fuzzy, but the longer the better, and a bare minimum seems to be 6 or so months). For example: you have met someone in undergraduate college. You didn't date then, but have known them socially since. 5 years later, as they were finishing a graduate school, you two decided to date, then realized that while you hadn't been dating long, their visa was expiring. You both want to continue the relationship, and decide to marry now. If you demonstrate the long association, and then also can show the current situation is "real" (say via testimony of mutual friends, several months of receipts for dining out, maybe a pair of tickets to some large event, etc.), then, while your marriage was prompted by immigration issue, it isn't solely or defined by it.

It would be illegal, if, the two people, while having known eachother for awhile, have never been a couple (i.e. cannot show any reasonable proof of joint dating). Big red flags are: one party paying the other (via cash, goods, or in-kind services), failure to live together, marriage occurs shortly before the visa expiration, lack of knowledge about the other's personal habits that would be reasonable from a married/involved couple, inability of friends to corroberate the relationship.

If the INS (or CIS, now) determines that your marriage is a fraud, and intended to bypass the immigration system, you, the citizen, will be fined and might possibly be imprisoned (though, this is unlikely). Your "spouse" will be immediately deported, and will be barred from ever receiving a US visa again.

If your marriage is determined to be real, well, then, congratulations! You spouse can then apply for a conditional permanent residency visa, which should be automatically granted for a term of 2 years. At the end of that term, your spouse can apply to make the visa permanent, in which case, they now are a permanent resident of the USA.