I had some time to really read the article and its amazing how much it gets wrong about the Immigration process, nearly none of it it is correct.
AP said:
There is a two-step process for obtaining U.S. immigration visas and green cards. Petitions are first considered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS. If granted, they must be approved by the State Department. Overall, there were 3.5 million petitions received from budget years 2007 through 2017.
All of that is wrong except for the petition part being handled by USCIS.
You can't just bring someone over into the U.S. because you got married, the fact that their "petition" was approved is meaningless. You'll note the article doesn't mention what this petition is or what it means.
AP said:
Amin, now 29, said she was betrothed when she was just 8 and he was 21. The petition she submitted after her marriage was approved by immigration officials, but he never came to the country, in part because she ran away from home. She said the ordeal cost her a childhood. She was in and out of foster care and group homes, and it took a while to get her life on track.
Again, what petition? What are they talking about?
I believe I know what they are referring to and can explain it to everyone here. When you get married to a non-citizen and are seeking to allow them to gain lawful status through your citizenship you first have to file an I-130 Petition for Family Relative and/or Spouse. I-130's are pretty much always approved so long as you can show documents that you've legally married someone. An approved I-130 DOES NOT grant anyone any legal status, you cannot come into the U.S. with an approved I-130. All the document is saying is that you are married to a U.S. citizen. The next step is to then submit a DS-260 with the State Department and then wait a long time, likely a year, for it to be processed. You'll need to provide a bunch of supporting documents (birth certificates, marriage certificates, prison records, military records, letters of support, etc.). Then once all of that has been reviewed you'll be scheduled an interview at the U.S. Consulate in the foreign spouse's home country where they'll both attend and be interviewed by a Consular Officer to determine if the marriage is legitimate.
And, only after that long process will the foreign spouse be issued a Green Card and allowed to travel to the U.S. That process is different, however, if the foreign spouse you married already resides in the U.S. with some type of lawful status.
So, the fact that I-130 Petitions for child marriages are approved is not a real issue, whether those same marriages successfully made it through the DS-260 process and their spouses issued Green Cards is a WHOLE seperate issue that I doubt is happening in any large numbers.
