Domestic Violence and the “Mail Order Bride” Industry

April 20, 2018

Guest blogger: Giani Interiano, law student, University of San Francisco

Domestic Violence and Capitalism: Are foreign brides solicited through the “mail order bride” industry safe in the U.S. under its current immigration laws?

It is no secret that the United States has a complicated and problematic history with immigration. However, from an outsider’s perspective, family-based immigration—when a United States citizen or legal permanent resident applies for a parent, child, or spouse to obtain legal immigration status in the United States—may seem like the least controversial and safest mode to gain legal immigration status. Within family-based immigration avenues, a spouse petitioning or applying for another spouse may also seem like a standard and safe way someone can legally immigrate to the United States.

However, even in the realm of spouse-based immigration, immigrants are vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and violence at the hands of U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident spouses. In 1999, the United States’ government-commissioned report, “International Matchmaking Organizations: A Report to Congress,” concluded that there was a high potential for foreign brides to experience abuse in marriages arranged through mail-order bride companies, or international marriage brokers (IMBs).[1] Fifteen years later, domestic violence service providers, law enforcement, and U.S. agencies were still seeing a large amount of “mail-order bride” abuse cases.[2] This trend and the industry that revolves around it shows how intertwined capitalist interests are in this problematic and underregulated industry.

The modern “mail-order bride” industry: does it even exist and is it legal?

Most people likely associate a wave of foreign brides immigrating to the U.S. with the environment that existed in the mid-1940s, when foreign spouses or “war brides” gained immigration status through their American military spouses who had served in World War II.[3] Many people likely assume the “mail-order bride” industry existed around the same era, as an archaic form of traditional coupling that has since died out or is now illegal. However, the mail-order bride industry is still alive and well. Today, many foreign fiancées or spouses come from Russia, Eastern Europe, Central America, and Asia, the majority coming from the Philippines, through IMBs.[4] In providing legitimate ways to immigrate to the U.S. for marriage purposes, the IMB industry is a very legal part of the American economy, responding to the consistent demand for potential fiancées and spouses based in exoticism and cultural stereotypes. In 2014, it was reported that more than 400 IMBs operated in the United States, and an estimated 9,000 to 13,000 foreign brides entered the United States through IMBs.[5]

Concerning immigration law, foreign brides can legally immigrate to the U.S. through the family-based visa for spouses. Upon arriving in the U.S. under this visa, the foreign bride and her American spouse have a two-year window in which they must live together and abide by other standards to establish their married status under U.S. immigration law. During these two years, the foreign bride is not a U.S. citizen but has temporary immigration status that can be revoked if any immigration standard is not met. After these two years, the foreign bride and American husband will jointly file for the foreign bride to have her immigration status changed or adjusted from a conditional green card-holder to a U.S. citizen. This change of status generally gives the foreign bride more security in the U.S., such as allowing her children to immigrate to the U.S. and join her. However, because these women heavily rely on their American husbands for their immigration status, all while establishing themselves in a new country, a toxic power dynamic can emerge in the home and can be life-threatening.

What fosters this toxic environment that threatens the safety of this immigrant group?

Advocates report that the prevalence of abuse and violence against these immigrant women stems from the imbalance in power between foreign brides and their American husbands. Upon entering the U.S. on a spouse-based visa, the power dynamic between the U.S. spouse and the immigrant partner shifts, making the immigrant partner wholly dependent on the spouse. This reliance can also isolate these women and may convince them that the relationship, even if abusive, provides the only security they have in the U.S. Cultural stereotyping of foreign brides in this industry also contributes to the dangers these women may face—i.e. the subservient and domestic exotic wife. These misconceptions have encouraged the fetishization of the “powerless exotic woman” that many Americans look for through this industry. In response, international marriage brokers bank on this false image of foreign women to promote their services, leading immigrant and women’s rights advocates to rally against the industry as a legal form of human trafficking, portraying women as exportable commodities.

U.S. Immigration Law Reacts to Violence Against Foreign Brides

If a foreign bride finds herself in an abusive relationship, her dependency on her American spouse for her immigration status seems incredibly dangerous. Thankfully, there are some legal resources in place for immigrants in this situation. Under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994, if an immigrant is a victim of domestic violence, she can apply for a VAWA waiver where she can file immigration paperwork, so she can petition for herself when it comes time to change their conditional visa status to citizenship status. Under this visa, applicants also do not have to wait until the full two years is over to apply for citizenship. Not just foreign brides can be eligible to apply under VAWA. Both female and male partners, as well as children, are eligible for the VAWA waiver, allowing victims to separate from their abusers and gain control over their own U.S. citizenship or residency-eligibility.

In response to abuse and violence against women in the mail-order bride industry, and partly due to the brutal 1995 murder of a Filipina foreign bride, Susana Blackwell, Congress passed the Federal International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) in 2005.[6] Under IMBRA, “mail-order bride” agencies or international marriage brokers (IMBs) have a list of requirements they must fulfill to operate legally in the United States. Such requirements include: conducting background checks of Americans seeking foreign brides, submitting those background checks to the prospective brides abroad, providing those women with concerning their legal rights in the U.S., and limiting American clients from repeatedly filing immigration paperwork for a foreign bride.[7] However, IMBRA still falls short in several ways.

First, non-profit religious or cultural matchmaking services, social referrals (i.e. personal advertisements) between marriage visas sponsors, and foreign nationals are exempt from following IMBRA requirements. Companies that operate an international marriage broker business, but not as a principle business, are also exempt from IMBRA requirements. Thus, the foreign nationals these agencies solicit may still be exposed to abuse and violence and will not be protected under the IMBRA statute. On the surface, IMBRA seemed to be a proactive law that would strictly enforce its requirements and shutdown suspicious IMBs. However, an entire ten years after its enactment not one IMB was prosecuted even with reports of clear violations of the law.

Second, one of IMBRA’s most important provisions requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to provide translated information about immigrants’ rights and protections under IMBRA. Although DHS’s website does have such information, it is only provided in English. In neglecting to provide translated information concerning the rights of these vulnerable immigrants, DHS administrators keep non-English-speaking immigrants in the dark about ways they can escape abusive relationships. To find an IMBRA-compliant internet page, an immigrant should instead visit the U.S. Department of State’s website that has printable IMBRA pamphlets translated into eighteen different languages.[8] There have also been reports of general non-compliance of IMBRA in immigration agencies that are supposed to monitor IMBs. In response, advocates and government officials alike have rallied for better training of immigration officials around IMBRA requirements and “red-flags.”

Third, even when an international marriage broker complies with IMBRA, marriage visa sponsors with no recorded criminal history but a propensity for violence can go undetected under IMBRA-compliant background checks. Even when immigrant women separate from abusive spouses, they still run the risk of facing violent sometimes deadly retaliation from their ex-spouse. In this way, immigrant women and children who may qualify as victims protected under IMBRA still face threats to their safety just like U.S. citizens or legal resident domestic violence victims under U.S. law. It took an entire ten years for Congress to do anything for these immigrant women in this country after Susana Blackwell’s murder, and with the significant exemptions IMBRA currently has, the law is a good-intentioned failure that should be amended to be more stringent in its application and more expansive in its coverage of victims.

Some advocates in U.S. politics have attempted to amend current law to better protect immigrant victims of violence and abuse. However, the mail-order bride industry has grown into a highly profitable industry with political power here in the US and has negatively impacted immigration law and protection for its victims. During one incident in 2012, a powerful president of a mail order bride company was able to put pressure on House Republicans with successfully led them to block provisions to the Violence Against Women Act aimed at allowing mail order brides to self-petition for immigration status.[9] In 2013, the Department of Justice did provide a nationwide bulletin to state and local law enforcement as well as domestic violence advocates to report potential IMBRA violations. However, many advocates are still concerned that the lack of a framework for IMBRA prosecutions or an office of enforcement under IMBRA will continue ensuring that resources for these victims will fall short.

Reflection of the Treatment of Undocumented Women and Children

Considering the legislative push to protect women in the mail-order bride industry that was seen in 2005 and in the reports about IMBRA’s developments since, it is important to remember that undocumented victims of domestic violence are treated very differently. With the rise in immigration raids and local law enforcement cooperation with ICE officials, there are too many reports of domestic violence victims being arrested due to their status after trying to report incidents of abuse. The uptick in harsh immigration enforcement has therefore forced undocumented immigrants further into the shadows, silencing them from reporting crimes against themselves. This disparity of treatment between documented victims and undocumented victims of domestic violence seems to suggest that IMBRA was established in response to pressure from foreign governments concerned for their citizens’ safety when immigrating to the U.S. In the ten years it took for IMBRA to be established, in IMBRAs own loopholes, and in the treatment of undocumented victims of domestic violence, the U.S. federal government seems to care little for the survival of these immigrant communities. Like an abuser itself, the U.S. has used its power to silence immigrant victims and will continue to do so.

[1] Tahirih Justice Center, “Report Finds Law to Protect Foreign Brides Has Not Been Fully Implemented.” 2014, December 18. http://www.tahirih.org/news/report-finds-law-to-protect-foreign-brides-from-abuse-and-exploitation-has-not-been-fully-implemented/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Soliven, Marivi. The Establishment. “The Mail Order Bride Industry Is Anything But Funny.” 2016, October 5. https://theestablishment.co/the-mail-order-bride-industry-is-anything-but-funny-d2711beb4403

[4] Ibid.

[5] Tahirih Justice Center, “Report Finds Law to Protect Foreign Brides Has Not Been Fully Implemented.” 2014, December 18. http://www.tahirih.org/news/report-finds-law-to-protect-foreign-brides-from-abuse-and-exploitation-has-not-been-fully-implemented/

[6] Tahirih Justice Center. “Report Finds Law to Protect Foreign Brides Has Not Been Fully Implemented.” 2014, December 18. http://www.tahirih.org/news/report-finds-law-to-protect-foreign-brides-from-abuse-and-exploitation-has-not-been-fully-implemented/

[7] GAO: U.S. Government Accountability Office. “International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005: Agencies Have Implemented Some, but Not All of the Act’s Requirements.” 2008, 8 August. https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-862

[8] U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs. “Rights and Protections for Foreign-Citizen Fiancé(e)s and Spouses of U.S. Citizens and Spouses of Lawful Permanent Residents.” https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/imbra.html

[9] Soliven, Marivi. The Establishment. “The Mail Order Bride Industry Is Anything But Funny.” 2016, October 5. https://theestablishment.co/the-mail-order-bride-industry-is-anything-but-funny-d2711beb4403