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(WOMENSENEWS)--This summer, members of Congress are expected to introduce legislation that would give a foreign woman the chance to look at a U.S. man's criminal record before accepting a commercially brokered offer of marriage from him.

The proposed legislation would mandate disclosure of past restraining orders against the man and would require immigration services to inform the woman about domestic violence protections available to her. Washington State recently passed similar legislation.

The legislative push coincides with the case of Nataliya Fox, a so-called mail-order bride who sued Encounters International, a well-known marriage agency based in Bethesda, Md., that specializes in matching Russian and Ukrainian women with U.S. husbands. Fox sued Encounters International in the U.S. District Court of Maryland for failing to give her information about domestic violence and for fraudulently informing her that she would be deported if she left her abusive husband, James M. Fox Jr., an Encounters International client. No trial date has been set for the case filed in April 2002.

Natasha Spivack, founder and owner of Encounters International, denied the charges. "This is a major scam and she happened to push all the right buttons," Spivack said of Nataliya Fox, "If you look at her, she looks very honest, like all con-artists do." Spivack, who emigrated to the U.S. from Moscow, claims that Nataliya Fox manufactured evidence of abuse and lied on her immigration applications. Spivack started Encounters International in 1993 using a fax machine and regular mail services before shifting to Web-based services as the Internet became widely available.

"In July 2000, James Fox attacked me," Nataliya Fox wrote in her declaration to the court in June 2002. "The beating lasted approximately two hours." James Fox was arrested for Nataliya's attempted murder in July 2000. In a recent telephone interview, he denied hitting Nataliya and said that his record had been expunged.

Randall Miller, a lawyer with Arnold and Porter, the prominent D.C. law firm that took Nataliya Fox's case pro bono, said in a recent telephone interview that James Fox expunged his record by completing a batterer's class. The Tahirih Justice Center, an immigrant women's rights advocacy group based in Falls Church, Va., joined Arnold and Porter as co-counsel. Tahirih has been the leading force behind the upcoming congressional initiative that would regulate the industry.

"During the entire time of my association with Encounters International and Natasha Spivack, I was never told about my rights should I encounter domestic abuse," Nataliya Fox's declaration states. "She said that if I ever left James I would likely be deported."

James Fox obtained a Haitian divorce decree from Nataliya in January 2001. In October of that year, he married Inna Fox, a woman he met through an Internet marriage agency that has since closed down, James Fox said. According to court records in her case, Nataliya Fox believes that her ex-husband is abusing his new wife. Encounters petitioned to find out the basis for Nataliya's suspicion, but the judge ruled that the potential risk to the safety of the person who is the source of Nataliya's information overrode the defense's need to know.

Thousands of Women Applying to Become U.S. Wives
Some women who enter commercially arranged marriages hope for a prince. Others just want a ticket out of economic desperation. Whatever the reason, thousands of foreign women marry near-strangers from the U.S. each year.

While services and costs vary, it generally works like this: men purchase addresses and profiles of women from a broker and initiate correspondence with the women they like. As the relationship progresses, men can choose to pay the matchmaker to send the women flowers or gifts. This is followed by a visit (immigration law requires that U.S. citizens meet their immigrating fiancee at least once), for which the matchmaker may arrange hotels, transportation, and translators--all for a fee, of course.

Because the "mail-order bride" business is almost entirely unregulated, there are no reliable statistics about how many women enter the U.S. each year to begin marriages with men they hardly know.

Between 1998 and 2001, the number of foreign fiancees entering the United States nearly doubled, from 12,306 in 1998 to 23,634 in 2001. Although no agency tracks how many of those fiancees are coming as a result of brokered matches, an Immigration and Naturalization Service report to Congress in 1999 estimated that 4,000 to 6,000 brokered brides entered the United States in 1998.

Estimating the number of fiancees in brokered matches is something more akin to divination than hard statistics. The 1998 figures--themselves an estimate--indicate that one-third to one-half of all entering fiancees met their intended through a matchmaker. If the percentage holds true, then the number of mail-order brides that entered the U.S. in 2001 could range from approximately 8,000 to 12,000.

GABRIELA Network, a Filipina advocacy group with offices throughout the U.S., believes that the congressional figure is low. It claims that more than 5,000 Filipina brides depart for the United States every year. Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia and the former Soviet states all boast thriving online matchmaking industries. The 1999 Immigration report found that most brides entering the U.S. came from the Philippines or former Soviet states.

No Government Oversight Leaves Brides Vulnerable
The lack of governmental oversight of the industry, critics say, leaves foreign women vulnerable to violence and abuse. Brokered brides leave familiar support networks and rely on near-strangers for financial security and immigration status. Many do not know that they can leave an abusive mate without being deported. And, while the women undergo rigorous background checks, their future husbands do not.

A 1996 law passed by Congress required that matchmakers provide women with domestic violence information or face a $20,000 fine. Regulations have never been put in place to implement that law and it has not been enforced. Nataliya Fox is the first woman to seek redress under that law.

"The agencies have a financial incentive to ensure the satisfaction of their paying clients--the men--but there is no comparable incentive to safeguard the woman," said Layli Miller-Muro, executive director of Tahirih.

Internet marriage agencies thrived with the rapid expansion of Web-based commerce and communication. The 1999 report found that approximately 200 international marriage brokers were operating in the U.S. In a recent count, Tahirih found more than 400 Internet marriage agencies.

Larry Gucciardo, owner of the Angelika Russian Marriage Agency Network, one of the largest U.S. marriage agencies, saw his opportunity in the Internet after his own frustratingly slow international courtship via regular post, he said in a recent phone interview.

In addition to faster communication, the Internet eliminated the start-up costs involved in producing and mailing a printed catalog, and could feature a greater number of profiles than a bulky book. "We have almost 100 Web sites," Gucciardo said. "We have 155,000 clients and about 20,000 girls. We add about 100 to 200 new girls every week."

Another problem with the business, say critics, is that it fuels men and women with false expectations about the quality of the prospective marriage. "The problem is that the organizations that market these relationships, that market these women, market stereotypes, to both sides," said Leslye Orloff, an expert on battered immigrants with the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund in Washington, D.C. "What they're doing is setting up an atmosphere that is ripe, potentially, for abuse."

U.S. men looking for foreign wives can search for such a partner by her height, weight, age and country of origin. The Christian Singles Registry promises, "Virgin Brides from 60 Countries." Another site called eMates markets "Quality Women," while One True Love--an Angelika Network site--advises potential customers that Russian women, unlike their American counterparts, "are not spoiled or greedy."

Some foreign women, like Fox, are finding that their American dreamboats turn into nightmares after marriage. One Russian woman, Svetlana, used a pseudonym out of fear of reprisal from her ex-husband. Svetlana nervously recounted how her husband repeatedly raped, beat and choked her during their 10-month marriage. When she turned to the marriage broker for help, they told her: "'It's just a different culture,'" Svetlana claimed.

"I didn't know. Is this normal marriage? My father, he never shook the shoulders of my mom, or choked her, or hit my mother's head against the wall," she said during an interview in the unmarked, secure offices of Tahirih.

Miller-Muro of Tahirih, which arranged the interview, added: "The barbarity of her torture is so severe that I think that as Americans we should be profoundly embarrassed that there's an industry that facilitates this."

Tahirih is not the only agency reporting a recent up-tick in the number of abused brides. Lillian Bykhovsky said in a recent telephone interview from her shelter for battered immigrant women in Atlanta that the abuse of mail-order brides "is quite a trend." Bykhovsky had assisted two such brides just that week. Sophia Lutsky, a counselor in Seattle, said by phone that she was currently seeing more than 10 abused brides and that she had seen an increase in such cases over the last several years.

In Colorado, Valyeria Roussakova, who came to the United States as a result of a brokered marriage, recently spoke in a phone interview about her own experiences. She said her husband terrorized her and her 9-year-old son by a previous marriage so badly that her son had frequent nightmares. Roussakova said her husband abused her emotionally and threatened her with deportation. "He said, 'If you don't like it, you can always leave,'" Roussakova said.

After she left him, Roussakova said her husband withdrew her work permit and she lost her job. According to Roussakova, the marriage agency told her that they take no responsibility for the outcome of a marriage.

"I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of the women you see on these sites come from very disadvantaged backgrounds," said Vivian Kutchon in a telephone interview, a victim's advocate with the GABRIELA Network in the Philippines. "It's just another level of control."

Recently, Encounters International held a social gathering in suburban Maryland for some its clients. Bill Lawson, an enthusiastic Encounters' client, disagreed that women who agree to these arranged marriages are being exploited. "We're not taking advantage of the women. We're taking advantage of an opportunity." He described Russian women as "a little more old-fashioned, as far as values go. A little more like American women in the 1950s or the 1930s."

Encounters' Web site says that the agency has facilitated almost 250 marriages, with only 25 divorces. Ken Meyers, an as-yet-unmarried client, hosted the recent social at his Germantown, Md., townhouse where Spivack's success was evident. One client, married eight years, held his 6-year-old daughter on his knee. Another, Joe, smiles at his wife of just over three months. A young Marine and his wife, married three years, humorously recount hard times on a rural base.

In the next room, however, an elegant Russian woman who sat with her manicured hands clasped tightly in her lap did not appear so well-adjusted to her new life. In 2000, she married a man--her "soul mate," as the Encounters' Web site described him, who had been an agency member for just two months.

"Potentially we could be a very good couple," she said, but her husband is isolated, moody, and frequently yells at her. He did not want her to learn to drive, hold a job or join a gym. On her birthday, he took out a pistol, one of his 17 guns, and put the barrel in his mouth and threatened to shoot himself. "He always carries a gun," she said. She did not want her name used for fear of angering her husband.

After the woman left the gathering, Spivack mocked the nervousness the woman had expressed to her about having possibly spoken too candidly with a reporter. "She says to me, 'I am worried I have said something wrong,'" Spivack said. She imitated the woman, by wringing her hands and continuing to quote her. "'I am afraid because my husband he has so many guns'" Spivack broke into her wide-toothed smile. As she laughed, several of her clients laughed with her.

Asjylyn Loder is a freelance writer in New York.

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For more information:
Encounters International:
http://www.encount.com

Gabriela Network--
Filipinas Not For Sale!
End the Export of Filipinas!:
http://www.gabnet.org/sale.htm

NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund--
Immigrant Women::
http://www.nowldef.org/html/issues/imm/index.shtml

The court case documents are from Nataliya Mikhaylovna Fox v. Encounters International, et al. pending before the U.S. District Court for the Southern Division of Maryland.

In fact if Congress passes a law requiring the information "before accepting a commercially brokered offer of marriage from him", they have just officially condoned the whole concept of brokered marriages and "mail order brides".  I remember the amount of paperwork and footwork that my wife and I went through before we were married.  It was very common for her to receieve paperwork there that I had to submit here, and for me to receive paperwork here that she had to submit at the embassy there.  I also remember the interview, lugging a briefcase full of pictures, letters, bills, official documents, etc. just to prove this was not a "mail-order" arrangement.

Americans don't have to go through all of this just to get married to another American.  The safeguards are in place, and they were being followed (at least a few years ago).  There are so many hurdles in place, a pastor in our fellowship (church denomination) is having difficulty obtaining a visa for his wife from Brasil, and he has been pastoring there and married to her for several years.  Being a pastor's wife is the ultimate in "privacy of a fishbowl" experiences.  They can come up with literally hundreds of witnesses to prove she is not a "mail order bride".

With all of the postings seeking and giving advice on how to keep relationships together, where to eat together in foreign lands, meeting her family, etc., it does not sound like anyone here is getting a "mail order bride".  Quite the contrary, this sounds like what courtship and dating used to be like in this country a few years ago.

As for the 5000 brides coming from the Philippines each year to the U.S., I agree; and that number probably is low.  (I remember seeing a hundred or so standing in line at the embassy on just one day.)  However, do not forget the tremendous number of Philippine citizens, Philippine expatriots, and the descending generations of these groups.  The number of Philippine citizens in the U.S. registered to vote is large enough that several polling stations for Philippine domestic elections were set up in the United States.  Also, do not forget the large number of Americans residing in the Philippines.  Just because the number is large does not mean they are "mail order brides".  As an example, I don't have the statistics, but if I were a gambler, I would wager that the number of Canadian and Mexican women marrying American men dwarfs the number of Filipinas and women from the CIS.

An interesting observation:  look at the correlation between political parties and their support of immigration.  Each political party tries to open the floodgates (yes, that is hyperbole) to immigrant populations that will vote for them after becoming citizens, and restrict the flow of those which do not tend to vote for them.  Please note the large groups of immigrants bringing in true "mail order brides" not mentioned in the article--no one mentioned the Khmer Cambodians and Vietnamese, Hispanics bringing in Hispanics, etc.  Although one cannot ever deduce the actions of any particular individual in a group, look how the groups as a whole mentioned as at-risk vote, after they become citizes, and I think you will notice a pattern...

There are no matchmaking or marriage broker agencies in the Philippines because they are illegal. The companies that GABRIELA refers to as “international matchmaking services” that are “trafficking” Filipina women are simply selling addresses. There is no matchmaking, “trafficking”, or introductions involved. If you marry a Filipina in the Philippines and petition her for a U.S. visa, the GABRIELA commies consider that as “trafficking” LOL

Don’t believe ANYTHING they say!

Ray

From this study: http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

"SUMMARY:  This bibliography examines 170 scholarly investigations: 134 empirical studies and 36 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.  The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 152,500. "

- Jeff

I grew up there, well not in the prison...lol  Did you live in Chilla or Madera???

Take care,

Mark

In your town, there is a Peruvian place on the main drag, have you and your wife ever tried it???  Also, have you ever tried the Basque place near the railroad tracks, great basic food.

Take care,

Mark

Hi Mark, you figured out what little town I was referring to.  lol  I must confess I haven't eaten at either place.  We've talked about eating at the basque restaurant but it truly looks like a dive from the outside.  But I hear the food is good and that even John Madden is a frequent visitor of all people.  I'll have to try it, I've been meaning to.  

Take care, James.

Yes, people from your town are moving to Chilla because the SV people are driving up the prices in your area....

Take care,

Mark

Take care,

Mark

Immediately upon reading that, I recalled a domestic case that happened a few years back in Southern California.  It involved two Korean-American sisters; a dash of greed; an order of identity theft; and a hot bowl of murder-for-hire.  What a juicy recipe it became!

http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/The_Han_Twins_Murder_Conspiracy

Damnit, that was low!

I'm gonna try that sandwich idea.  Sounds nifty.

- Jeff

It will hold up in court, but unfortunately, if you tell people your wife beat you, they might not be willing to acknowledge the mightiness of your cojones.  Double standards suck.

Just remember fellas your're innocent until proven guilty (unless you wind up in domestic violence court)  And, oh yeah, that hearsay technicality???? forget about it, it doesn't apply to you.  It's called "excited utterance."  And they don't have to be all that excited when the judge lets it into court to convict your ass.

Or taken anti-paranoia pills.

Buster,

I think you might be seeing the article as more extreme than it is.  It doesn't say that all men are like that, but that there are some who are violent and that the women are not protected by a lot of laws.  Scammers know the laws, for sure, and they will exploit them.  But I imagine it's exactly those who get abused who don't know what they have to do and who think they should put up with it.

If you get bored with your MOB, you could withdraw her residency application and her work permit.  You could force her to go home.  I know people talk a lot about the abuse law, but not all these women are educated and understand everything about the US system, especially if they come from an oppressive country and especially if they don't speak a lot of English.

Why are we getting mad that there is legislation helping women?  It doesn't mean that it will be blindly enforced or that your rights won't be protected.  Don't forget that you're the citizen, so you have more options than she does.

And, as far as the innocent till proven guilty part, shouldn't that apply to scamming allegations too?  We always take it for granted that women are scammers, but we never seem to accept that some men are abusers.

In the U.S., you can not withdraw her residency application or work permit and you can not force her to go home.

Ray

You can withdraw your petition for a K-1.

The article mentioned that one of the women had her work permit withdrawn.  Now maybe I should not have taken that at face value, so I'm investigating.

Also, if you withdraw your sponsorship, wouldn't her permanent resident application fall through?

He can refuse to marry her and she can refuse to marry him. He can NOT force her to leave the country. He could purchase a plane ticket for her and offer her a ride to the airport, but whether or not she gets on that plane is entirely up to her. Did you think he could drag her kicking and screaming through airport security and push her onto the plane and slam the door behind her? Come on Felinessa, use your head.

Felinessa: “You can withdraw your petition for a K-1.”

Yes, you can withdraw your petition for a K-1 visa for your foreign fiancée, but you’d better hurry. It usually takes about 2 months or less to approve most K-1 petitions. So what? After the petition is approved and forwarded overseas and the visa is issued, there is really nothing to withdraw, except your decision to say “I do” at the wedding. Being engaged to marry a U.S. citizen does not give you the right to U.S. residence or citizenship. People change their minds about marrying all the time and it really has nothing to do with their country of origin.

Felinessa: “The article mentioned that one of the women had her work permit withdrawn.

Perhaps she lost her right to work legally because she was out of status? Perhaps she forgot to renew her work authorization when it expired? Perhaps the article is full of half-truths and lies meant to misinform and scare gullible women?

Felinassa: “Also, if you withdraw your sponsorship, wouldn't her permanent resident application fall through?”

Maybe, maybe not. Many resident petitions are approved in a few months, so there is normally a small window in which the Affidavit of Support could be withdrawn IF and ONLY IF the government allows your request to withdraw it. After approval, there is nothing to withdraw. For those foreign spouses who have temporary conditional residence and are divorced within 2-years, they can petition for removal of conditions on their own by simply checking a box on the form.

All this nonsense about forcing her to leave, canceling her immigration status, taking away her work permit, etc., is just a bunch of hype to get you all excited. A U.S. citizen can not go to an office and complete a form or call a number and have his or her foreign spouse deported. I highly recommend that you not believe all of the propaganda that the feminist organizations put out because much of it is pure crap. Do your own research if you want the truth.

Ray

He can't directly, but the INS will.  I read the legislation myself: if he won't marry her within the 3 months, she HAS to leave the country, willingly or kicking and screaming.  If she doesn't, she would be banned from entering the US for 10 years.

On paper, yes. In practice, no. It’s good that you are reading the legislation, but you need to remember that law is one thing and enforcement is another. In actuality, virtually nobody will be tracked down and deported for overstaying their visa. If she doesn’t leave, she can probably stay here for many, many years. The 10-year ban would only become applicable if she actually left the country. Why do you think there are an estimated 8-10 million(?) illegals in the U.S.? It would be an overwhelming and cost-prohibitive task to track them all down and deport them, so they just remain.

But getting back to the original thought. So he doesn’t marry her? What’s wrong with that? The fiancée visa is issued with the understanding that the parties INTEND to marry within 90 days. It effectively gives the couple up to 90 days to decide if they actually want to marry before making the final commitment. If one or both decide not to marry, for whatever reason, then why would that worry you or the feminist organizations? If they cancel their wedding plans, then she is supposed to return to her country, just as she agreed to when she applied for the visa. So what’s the big deal? Please don’t try to portray a broken engagement as some kind of abuse or violation of the foreigner’s rights, because it isn’t. Engagements are broken all the time for a variety of reasons.

Not all foreign spouses arrive in the U.S. on a fiancé visa. For those marrying overseas, the usual route is a CR-1 immigrant visa for the spouse. When the foreign spouse steps off the plane, he/she is granted instant legal resident status with all the accompanying rights. Even if the couple were to divorce a week after arrival, the foreign spouse would be allowed to remain here, as long as the marriage was entered into in good faith.

Keep reading and studying Felinessa. You’re learning and you’ll figure out soon enough that the feminist propaganda is not always the real truth :-)

Ray

Engage the Exotic – Latin Women
http://International-Introductions.com

A simple arrest for something like shoplifting is sometimes all it takes to get your ass deported, but if you can keep a low profile and don't leave the country, you could easily stay here for life.

She won't get back in on a new tourist visa. If she marries a gringo overseas, she may or may not get a spouse visa. It probably depends most on the mood of the interviewing officer when she applies for a visa.

Ray

I think Felinessa is intelligent enough to see for herself that the feminist propaganda that she has been exposed to is just that…propaganda. But whether she uses her mind or not is up to her.

I don’t really care if one feminist is converted after being exposed to the truth, but I can’t sit back and let the propaganda slip through unchallenged.

Ray

- Jeff

I think geography makes all the difference: illegal aliens would have to seep through the US, and that's not easy with all the security regulations.  We don't share a border with Central America, which acts as a gateway for South America.  Generally, illegal aliens don't come on a plane...

Also, from the figures I've looked at for 2003-4, a large number of immigrants come through the skilled worker category, so the state has a vested interested in processing them fast.

- Jeff

Take care,

Mark

"Why are we getting mad that there is legislation helping women? It doesn't mean that it will be blindly enforced or that your rights won't be protected. Don't forget that you're the citizen, so you have more options than she does.

I can see you have no inkling how domestic abuse courts operate throughout America...or, do you claim to be an expert on that too.