Sham marriage

Sham marriages are sometimes considered distinct from a marriage fraud, which is a type of romance scam, in which one spouse is unwittingly taken advantage of by the foreign spouse who feigns romantic interest, typically in order to obtain a residence permit or for money.[3][4][5]

Common reasons for sham marriages are to gain immigration,[6][7] residency, work, or citizenship rights for one of the spouses.

There have been cases of people entering into a sham marriage to avoid suspicion of homosexuality or bisexuality. For example, Hollywood studios had allegedly requested homosexual actors, such as Rock Hudson, to conceal their homosexuality in a so-called lavender marriage.

Since the introduction of stricter modern immigration laws in First World countries,[8] sham marriages have become a common method to allow a foreigner to reside, and possibly gain citizenship, in the more desirable country of the spouse. The couple marries with knowledge that the marriage is solely for the purpose of obtaining the favorable immigration status, and without intending to live as a couple. This is frequently arranged as a business transaction with payment of a sum of money, and occurs more commonly with foreigners already in the country.

In the UK the Border Agency issued guidance to clergy in April 2011 to help prevent sham marriages intended only to gain the right to reside. English and Welsh clergy may perform a marriage, according to the law there. They have been advised not to offer to publish banns for any marriage where one partner is from outside the European Union. Instead, the couple were to be asked to apply for a licence; if a member of the clergy is not satisfied that a marriage is genuine, they must make that clear to the person responsible for granting the licence.[9]

Since the Home Office hostile environment policy started in 2012, there has been criticism in the UK of heavy-handed action affecting genuine marriages. Genuine weddings have been interrupted, and dawn raids have been made to check whether couples are sharing a bed. People have been detained for months on wrongly being accused of being in a sham marriage. In 2018, 1,618 marriages reported by registrars as being suspicious were investigated; the Home Office refused to say how many were found to be sham.[10]

In August 2010, a senior registrar in Ireland estimated that 15% of civil marriages were bogus, for the purpose of gaining residency.[11]

In United States immigration law, marriage not made in good faith and for purposes of immigration fraud is a felony, subject to a penalty of a US$250,000 fine and five-year prison sentence on the citizen, and deportation of the foreigner.[12] In the 2009 fiscal year, 506 of the 241,154 petitions filed were denied for suspected fraud, a rate of less than 0.09%.[13] U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services typically conducts an interview of marriage-based green card applicants, with additional scrutiny if they are from a developing country, have a different ethnicity or religion from their sponsor, have a large age gap with their sponsor, or have a history of prior marriage-based green card applications.[14]

In Canada, legislation on sham marriages was strengthened in 2012.[15] Continuous controversy arose regarding the issue; Canadian officials have been accused both of being too harsh and harassing couples and of being too lenient in deciding what is a genuine relationship.[16] In addition, there have been objections to the policy from women's organizations, which argued that the new policy which requires the sponsor and the new spouse to live in a "genuine relationship" for two years endangers women who are victims of domestic violence. Although there is an exception to this rule in cases of abuse,[17] the policy has been accused of being too weak (as abuse is difficult to prove).[18]

• Arranged marriage
• Beard (companion)
• Green Card (film)—in which a sham marriage is the main plot
• Green card marriage
• Heqin
• Hollywood marriage—including marriages entered into and promoted primarily for their publicity value
• Mail-order bride—often involving brides wishing to get immigration access to a mate's country
• Mariage blanc—a marriage without consummation
• Marriage of convenience—of which "sham" marriages are a subgroup
• The Proposal (film)—a romantic comedy set around what is initially a fake marriage
• U.S. Diplomatic Security Service (DSS)—See Investigations Section—Passport and Visa fraud
• Void marriage—an attempted marriage which does not even meet the legal requirements for a marriage

• Academic article on political discourse & policies on forced and fraudulent marriages in the Netherlands: Bonjour&De Hart 2013, "A proper wife, a proper marriage. Constructions of 'us' and 'them' in Dutch family migration policy", European Journal of Women's Studies
• Academic article providing two telling examples of the fear of and resort to sham marriage in eighteenth-century England. Castro Santana, A (2015). "Sham Marriages and Proper Plots: Henry Fielding's Shamela and Joseph Andrews". English Studies 96 (6): 636–653.