ICE Asks Americans to Report Marriage Fraud

For the liberals, who advocate illegal immigration and are out on the streets in some cities protesting the arrest of illegal aliens in the country, this summer is hardly going to be the summer of love. The Trump administration is set to crack down on immigration fraud via marriage.

On June 6, the official X account of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) posted the picture of a woman in handcuffs being led away by a state trooper. The post said that the woman was arrested for committing marriage fraud and is going to face consequences for violating the country’s immigration law.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reposted the same message by USCIS on its own official X account with the hotline number for reporting marriage fraud.

Both posts on X instantly received a flood of comments naming and posting pictures of one woman – Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota – who remains accused of marriage fraud. Omar arrived in America as a refugee from Somalia and since becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen, she has made news stories for her suspicious marital history. The biggest controversy of her personal life is her 2009 marriage to another Somali immigrant Ahmed Elmi, allegedly her brother whom she wanted to make an American citizen.

There has been no official investigation into Omar’s marriage scandal involving her alleged brother Elmi despite repeated calls for such a probe. In February this year, Republican Congressman Brandon Gill of Texas reportedly renewed the call for probing Omar’s marriage fraud scandal. All these calls have fallen on deaf ears so far. But recently some action by the Trump administration targeting fraudulent marriages for getting US citizenship has made news.

On June 12, Kalee Ann Huff of Illinois was sentenced to five years of federal probation for committing fraud and perjury. Huff married an Indian man, Aakash Prakash Makwana, who was in the U.S. on a visa that was about to expire. To stay in the country beyond his visa expiry, Makwana offered Huff $10,000 for marrying him. The sham marriage was performed in 2021 with assistance from Huff’s brother-in-law Joseph Sanchez, who was sentenced last month to five years of federal probation. Huff said she never received the money promised to her. Makwana is scheduled to be sentenced in late September this year.

Earlier this month, Fox News reported on a couple in Camden, NJ, who entered a sham marriage so that a 27-year-old Albanian man, Elvis Harizaj, could get U.S. citizenship. The investigation by ICE revealed that the woman was also previously married to a Brazilian man who got his citizenship via marriage.

These stories hardly scratch the surface of the infestation of immigration fraud via marriage that has plagued America and other developed countries for decades. The sham marriage usually lasts till the intended immigrant receives his permanent residency (green card); then comes the divorce. The new citizen is then free to get another spouse from abroad and make him/her a citizen. This chain continues at the expense of transparency and the enforcement of immigration law.