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"Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike

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stoprobbers
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
OY. I started with a comment in a WHOLE OTHER POST and ended up here?

Many apologies, I don't know what's going on.
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Edited by stoprobbers at 07/20/09 5:07 PM stoprobbers was starred stoprobbers was unstarred

malishka
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
I married a Ukrainian, which is a hot spot for that stuff - the people in the interview room with us were VERY clearly not legit. I prepared for months, didn't sleep for weeks, had every stupid picture/love letter/e-mail/bank statement/letter from friends saying it was legit. It was highly, highly embarrassing. But (perhaps because I'm a woman and they don't have as much of a problem with mail-order-husbands, or perhaps because I was living in Ukraine at the time) - the interview was maaaaaaaybe 10 minutes long. My friends who went through the same process said the same thing. Moral is: prepare everything, just in case, but if it's legit, it'll show.
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LindsayC: dissertations are overrated. promoted this comment malishka was starred malishka was unstarred

LindsayC: doctoral hilarity ensues
07/20/09

@malishka: Moral is: prepare everything, just in case, but if it's legit, it'll show.

Precisely. It is far better to be over-prepared and have a great story about what a joke it was than to be sitting there sweating bullets because you are missing something they want.
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envirodesigner
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
Man, that interview gets pretty detailed. Not that much that I feel that my privacy gets crossed but they want to them proof that you're not trying to cheat the system. But I did suggest to my husband that everything would be solved if I just released a sex tape of us.
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LindsayC: doctoral hilarity ensues
07/20/09

@envirodesigner: Hah! I always said that too. During the application process they kept asking for proof of our relationship and I joked with an attorney friend that I would gladly send them photos of us in the act if that would help.
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lalaland13
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
This is so amateur. What you do is you get your assistant, who looks remarkably like Ryan Reynolds, to marry you under the threat of blackmail. Then you go to Alaska and meet Betty White. Then you fall in looove.
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vanka-vstanka
07/20/09

@lalaland13: I'd probably marry someone just to have Betty White as my mother-in-law. Good thing she never had kids.
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vanka-vstanka
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
In my experience, Russians, at least, seem to have a pretty lax attitude about marriage in general. I have friends who got drunk or bored or were getting over a breakup and married someone. My ex was confused as to why I, at 22, had never been married before. Whenever I have a boyfriend for any length of time, I get asked when am I going to get married because don't I want to get Russian citizenship? Plus getting divorced here is a lot easier, so it's more like "Well, if it works out it works out. If not I'll get a divorce and find someone else." So it really doesn't surprise me that this sort of practice exists. In addition, the attitude toward laws themselves is basically, "Here is the law. Here is the amount of roubles it takes to get around it."
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envirodesigner
07/20/09

@vanka-vstanka: I'm surprised how many of my in-laws would get divorced or re-married, that would so not go down well with my conservative family.
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vanka-vstanka
07/20/09

@envirodesigner: Even in Orthodox Church official doctrine you can get married three times, according to my mother.
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Atomic Bowling
07/20/09

@vanka-vstanka: When I was in Russia I was told (by several drunken men on a train) that a woman ought to marry three times - once for money, once for power, and once for love. There was some argument about which order this should be done in, but the general consensus was that money and power should come first, and then you could worry about love later. My overall experience was that the idea of marrying for profit (citizenship, money, whatever) is not at all abnormal there, and in fact not considering those things when marrying is seen as much weirder.
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vanka-vstanka
07/20/09

@Atomic Bowling: Yeah, a lot of my friends were confused when I dumped a computer programmer for a writer. My explanation that the programmer was an asshole and treated me badly and I got along really well with the writer and we were really compatible didn't make up for NO MONEYZ.
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jemandtheholograms
07/20/09

@vanka-vstanka: I'd love to hear the logic behind 3 marriages are fine, but that 4th one makes you kind of slutty.
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Katxyz
07/20/09

@jemandtheholograms:

If one is for money, two is for power and three is for love, four is obviously just for the awesome sex.
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rednrowdy
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
"It's easy money, and the girls are really hot."

..which is why the whole thing still exists because God forbid if the money was easy and the girls were ugly.
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Grim Reaper of the Forest
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
My old roommate whose husband immigrated to marry her had to go through the whole procedure to prove they were legitimate. I think it was a hassle but not nearly as difficult as trying to get his mother over here afterward. Apparently his birth certificate was not up to snuff so they had to do some sort of DNA test. The most traumatic was my friend who came to stay with me for the summer when I was in high school. Immigration detained her and grilled her for an hour because they thought she was coming over to illegally nanny. Finally my mother found someone willing to talk to us and convinced them that she didn't need a nanny for her 17 year old daughter.
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Yahtzii
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
Oh, that Ivan. He's a man who understands that the real way to a girl's heart is money, fear, and manipulation. What was Yelena thinking?
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JerseyGrrrl
07/20/09

@Yahtzii: I dunno. But at least he's single now! Get me to Brighton Beach!!
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Sadie
07/20/09

@JerseyGrrrl: I think that particular catch is in Sheepshead Bay!
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KelseyElle
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
My step brother randomly married his school's Romanian exchange student in Vegas (you can't make this shit up) 2 days after his high school graduation - a week before she was supposed to return home. They had gone on like 3 dates. It was all very weird for my family. It's been 2 years but my mother and I are, for obvious reasons, convinced it is a sham.
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AmericanSplendor
07/20/09

@KelseyElle:

That is the single weirdest thing ever, but I will reserve judgment. Did he suddenly start buying expensive things?
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KelseyElle
07/20/09

@AmericanSplendor:
No! They live in a trailer in rural Idaho while he works on his associates degree in Automotive and she works at subway! I always look forward to their loltastic updates when I come home for visits.
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jemandtheholograms
07/20/09

@KelseyElle: That is odd, but teenage stupidity often comes out in the race against scamming for citizenship. I guess if they get divorced soon and she gets to stay in the country, you'll have your answer.
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Alohamaid
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
Whoa, whoa, whoa now but Glamor let me to believe that this was a romantic way to meet the older American love of your life. Ladymags are misleading? Surely you jest.
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colormeroutine
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
The elderly Polish woman who was my great-aunt's live-in caretaker before she died recently asked my grandfather to marry her for a greencard. She had previously lost $5000 to someone she paid for a marriage who divorced her before the required amount of time was up. Her daughter got citizenship through a paid marriage as well, but lives with the husband she married in Poland before she came here
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Stella Kevlar
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
And yet it's the gays who are destroying the sanctity of marriage.
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Alohamaid
07/20/09

@Stella Kevlar:
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elephante
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
I like how "Ivan" though he was making this woman look bad and actually just made himself look like a creep. And gotta love the way the Post will spin a story... however unsuccessfully.
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LindsayC: doctoral hilarity ensues
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
The green card interview is absolutely ridiculous. Ours lasted all of 10 minutes. I brought in our wedding photo album as well as a scrapbook detailing our entire romantic history, which I slaved over for months. The guy didn't even want to crack the cover. He asked where we met, he looked through our (HUGE) dossier, he criticized our finances and spent 2/3 of the interview telling my husband all about British history (much of it was incorrect). Then he stamped our shit and we were out of there. We could have been two different species, for all he knew.
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Maritsa
07/20/09

@LindsayC: dissertations are overrated.: My parents' interview in the '70s was much harder. My mom is still offended they had to go through with it - apparently someone had reported them as being a possible sham so it was extra-hard. Even though they had been married 3 years and had a newborn (me).
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Zombie Ms. Skittles
07/20/09

@LindsayC: dissertations are overrated.: What kind of stuff did they ask, if you don't mind? I'm hoping to import a dude and I'm wigging out about the interview process. I am totally convinced we'll fuck up.
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vanka-vstanka
07/20/09

@LindsayC: dissertations are overrated.: I believe that in high-fraud consulates the interview is much more difficult. I'm gathering from the British history bit that your interview was in the UK, where the perceived rate of fradulent marriages is going to be much lower.
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LindsayC: doctoral hilarity ensues
07/20/09

@Zombie Ms. Skittles: Don't worry about the interview- @vanka is correct- they don't bother much with our fellows (mine is British). PM me!
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Zombie Ms. Skittles
07/20/09

@LindsayC: dissertations are overrated.: I PMed you! I'll have to check that site out. The entire process is confusing and insane.
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LaFemme
07/20/09

@vanka-vstanka: I was going to say- with the Western Europe if it a lot easier, so I hear, than with Eastern Europe/Asia/South America. I was interviewd with my Italian ex when he was applying for a long-term visa, and it was no biggie. I imagine if I were trying to get a non-English speaking SO from Bolivia into the country (which is distinctly possible) it would be more of a challenge.
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LindsayC: doctoral hilarity ensues
07/20/09

@vanka-vstanka: Yes you are right- I have a friend from Dominica who had a much more difficult time. Her mother was even interviewed by some U.S. government agents.
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J.D.Regent
07/20/09

@LaFemme: I have been in a ton of these interviews and there is a WILD DIFFERENCE based on skin color and country of origin.
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catness_
07/20/09

@Zombie Ms. Skittles: They ask things like: "When and where did you meet?", "Have you met each other's parents?", "When was the last time you saw each other's parents", "Show us some pictures of the two of you together", "It's OK, I don't need to see your wedding album, I will puke if I see another one today" and so forth... It's quite straightforward. Then again, I've lived in the US for a few years before getting married and had a job and a work visa, so it was really just a formality.
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cocobanal
07/20/09

@LindsayC: dissertations are overrated.: I married a Brit and went through that interview, too. I can't remember the questions--that's how trite they were. I was sooo nervous, but it turned out to be nothing, at least in our case. And it may not even have lasted 10 minutes.
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cocobanal
07/20/09

@J.D.Regent: I'm not surprised to hear that. My ex-husband (from England) was pasty white and well-educated, and our interview was basically a farce, with the easiest questions ever.
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milominderbinder
07/20/09

In reply to "Business Marriages" Anything But Businesslike
Doesn't this fall under human trafficking? Or it should, this is a recipe for violence, crime and sexual abuse. I know that The Proposal made it seem all cute but even in that movie it was sort of disturbing how she blackmailed and threatened him.
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