On November 4, a California man pleaded guilty to a\nfederal conspiracy charge to commit marriage fraud for his role in running a\nscheme in which citizens of China paid up to $60,000 to enter into fake\nmarriages to obtain green cards (i.e. Legal Permanent Resident status). The\ncase is a reminder that continued vigilance is necessary to deter the\never-present temptation to commit immigration fraud via sham marriages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The head of the entire operation was Chang Yu \u201cAndy\u201d He (of Monterey Park, California), the owner of Fair Price Immigration Service. According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release<\/a>, between January 2018 and November 2019, He recruited U.S. citizens to enter into fraudulent marriages with citizens of mainland China. \u201cSpecifically,\u201d the DOJ stated, \u201cHe planned to arrange fraudulent marriages for three pairs of Chinese nationals and U.S. citizens to obtain green cards. The U.S. citizens in these situations were actually undercover agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).\u201d He, along with several other individuals, was eventually arrested<\/a> in March 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the plea agreement and court documents,\nHe coached his clients how to lie to United States Citizenship and Immigration\nServices (USCIS) during interviews. The individual also advised both the\nChinese nationals and HSI agents posing as American citizen clients to\nestablish joint paper trails, bank accounts, and leases, instructing them to\nalso to \u201ckeep clothes in the apartments where the couples supposedly lived\ntogether, and visit the apartment several days a week so the neighbors would\nsee them together.\u201d He now faces up to five years in federal prison and will be\nsentenced in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is understandable that foreign nationals will go to great extents to gain access to the \u201cgolden ticket\u201d that is life in the U.S., or another prosperous Western nation. Many do so legally and ethnically. Unfortunately, some attempt to game the system, including through marriage fraud. As Immigration and Customs Enforcement points out<\/a>, it is \u201cnot a victimless, innocent crime,\u201d but rather \u201ca serious crime that weakens our nation\u2019s security and makes us less safe.\u201d That\u2019s because \u201cparticipants in marriage fraud may, knowingly or unknowingly, be aiding terrorists, foreign intelligence or other criminal organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On November 4, a California man pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge to commit marriage fraud for his role in running a scheme in which citizens of China paid up to $60,000 to enter into fake marriages to obtain green cards (i.e. Legal Permanent Resident status). The case is a reminder that continued vigilance<\/p>\n