More K Visa Brides on the Way: Will Terrorists be among them?

By Joe Guzzardi
December 16, 2015
 
Ignoring irrefutable evidence that the K-1 fiancée visa was the principle enabler that allowed Syed Farook to bring his terrorist wife-to-be Tashfeen Malik to California, Congress refuses to take action to strengthen or, better yet, eliminate it. While Congress approved a tightening of the dangerous visa waiver program, it postponed, possibly indefinitely, any debate to revise the K visa despite the risks it poses to American security. 
 
Based on my first-hand knowledge of K visa holders, Congress should vote to end the visa immediately. During my more than 20 years as an English as a Second Language instructor in California’s San Joaquin Country, dozens of international fiancées enrolled my class. Typically, this is how it evolved: the American citizen husband brought the young woman to class, and upon registration gave me their general backgrounds which inevitably involved meeting on an online dating site, traveling abroad to meet in-person, and coming to America to marry.
 
In my experience, the widely-held perception of Internet marriage is accurate—middle-aged American men, often multiple-time losers at love and less attractive than their mates who are routinely much younger and speak little English. The K visa was essential to their wedding.
 
Although it’s outrageous that the San Bernardino killings isn’t enough impetus for Congress to reevaluate the K visa’s threat, it should also consider that the K visa aids a multimillion dollar business of questionable value, the Internet international hook up industry. According to a 2013 Fortune expose, one company that deals in overseas matchmaking anticipated that it would earn more than $140 million in 2013 based on its 220 percent traffic increase that included 2.6 million visits in one month alone. The top ten premium international dating sites collectively received 12.6 million hits in a single month.
 
Not all the hits ultimately result in marriage, but they represent the first step. Statistics from the Department of Homeland Security and an analysis from the Tahirih Justice Center, a Washington D.C.-based organization that protects immigrant women from violence, found that in 1999, there were roughly 200 international marriage broker agencies which coordinated between 4,000 and 6,000 marriages; in 2010, the agencies doubled to 400, and the marriages increased to somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000. Not all the unions have been happy. Several international brides’ murders led to the 2005 International Marriage Broker Regulation Act which mandates that agencies perform more comprehensive background checks on their male customers, and advise women of their rights once in the U.S. Skeptics claim the law is poorly enforced.
 
Like it or not, more global marriages are on the way. Some dating offices that traditionally operated in Russia and other locations abroad have opened branches in New York and are spending huge amounts—$45 million—on mainstream television advertising to erase their shady reputations. Now that dating sites have more money to promote their industry, and the technical savvy to go with it, another quantum leap in international marriages is assured unless Congress intercedes, unlikely given its current apparent reluctance.
 
The K visa is bad federal policy, and has been one of the main contributors to huge immigration increases during the past two decades. Currently, more than 27 percent of green cards issued go to spouses of American citizens. Foreign nationals who obtained green cards based on marriage to an American have more than doubled since 1985, and have quintupled since 1970. Congress should intercede, but as the case often seems to be, American safety is secondary to a more expansive immigration agenda.