Whitey Ford
01-24-2019, 04:35 AM
U.S. Combats Child Marriage Abroad, Grants Thousands of Spousal Visas for Immigrant Kids (https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2019/01/u-s-combats-child-marriage-abroad-grants-thousands-of-spousal-visas-for-immigrant-kids/)
https://i.imgur.com/kttdsjj.png
While the U.S. government advances policies to prevent child marriage in foreign countries it approves thousands of petitions filed by Americans seeking spouse or fiancé visas for children born abroad. In the last decade more than 8,500 petitions for spousal entry into the U.S. involved minors, according to government figures included in a Senate Homeland Security report (How the U.S. Immigration System Encourages Child Marriages) released this month. In an overwhelming number of the cases girls were the younger party and in some there were “significant age differences,” Senate investigators found. Two were only 13 years old, 38 were 14 years old, 269 were 15 years old, and 1,768 were 16. The remaining 6,609 were 17 years old, according to the records which were obtained from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
U.S. law and U.S. Department of State policy aim to prevent and reduce the risks of child marriages occurring around the world, yet major loopholes in U.S. law have allowed thousands of minors to be subjected to child marriages,” the senate report states. “Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), a U.S. child may petition for a visa for a spouse or fiancé living in another country, and a U.S. adult may petition for a visa for a minor spouse or fiancé living abroad.”
Senate investigators spoke with a “child marriage victim” who was forced to marry her older cousin during a family vacation to Pakistan. USCIS approved her spousal immigration benefit when she was just 13 years old and throughout the forced marriage, she suffered physical and sexual abuse. “She is just one of the thousands of U.S. women and girls forced into a child marriage involving the U.S. immigration system,” the report says.
https://i.imgur.com/kttdsjj.png
While the U.S. government advances policies to prevent child marriage in foreign countries it approves thousands of petitions filed by Americans seeking spouse or fiancé visas for children born abroad. In the last decade more than 8,500 petitions for spousal entry into the U.S. involved minors, according to government figures included in a Senate Homeland Security report (How the U.S. Immigration System Encourages Child Marriages) released this month. In an overwhelming number of the cases girls were the younger party and in some there were “significant age differences,” Senate investigators found. Two were only 13 years old, 38 were 14 years old, 269 were 15 years old, and 1,768 were 16. The remaining 6,609 were 17 years old, according to the records which were obtained from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
U.S. law and U.S. Department of State policy aim to prevent and reduce the risks of child marriages occurring around the world, yet major loopholes in U.S. law have allowed thousands of minors to be subjected to child marriages,” the senate report states. “Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), a U.S. child may petition for a visa for a spouse or fiancé living in another country, and a U.S. adult may petition for a visa for a minor spouse or fiancé living abroad.”
Senate investigators spoke with a “child marriage victim” who was forced to marry her older cousin during a family vacation to Pakistan. USCIS approved her spousal immigration benefit when she was just 13 years old and throughout the forced marriage, she suffered physical and sexual abuse. “She is just one of the thousands of U.S. women and girls forced into a child marriage involving the U.S. immigration system,” the report says.