A proposed bill would institute a 48-hour waiting period for marriage licenses to be issued to prevent fraudulent marriages. The bill, “An Act Concerning Justices of the Peace,” was introduced in the Planning and Development Committee earlier this legislative session.
“The bill (sic) raises an interesting concept that I hope residents will weigh in on,” Sen. Jeff Gordon (R-Woodstock), ranking senator on the Planning and Development Committee, said in an email. “We have seen multiple news reports of alleged ‘sham marriages’ taking place in Bridgeport, New Haven, Southington and other municipalities. This bill allows for a public conversation and enables people to share their stories and discuss solutions.”
“Sham marriages” are a type of immigration fraud where an immigrant and an American citizen pretend to be a couple and get married so the immigrant can gain a green card and, eventually, become a U.S. citizen.
In one month last year, 100 marriages in Bridgeport, or 40% of the marriages during that period of time, were between a woman who was an American citizen and a man who was an immigrant, neither of whom lived in the state at the time, CT Insider reported. Often, couples would gather outside City Hall and be paired by people holding paperwork—the people suspected of arranging these marriages—before walking in together, presumably to get married. Town officials and immigration officers suspect that these might be sham marriages.
Police and immigration officers are also investigating a string of potential sham marriages in Waterbury, New Haven, and Southington, CT Insider reported. Sometimes this arrangement can be dangerous. Two women in Southington reported to the police that they were physically threatened when they tried to pull out of a sham marriage.
CT Insider’s investigation uncovered couples primarily consisting of Indian men who were immigrants and American women. However, this issue is not confined to one national group.
Last month, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) indicted 11 individuals for arranging sham marriages across the nation between Chinese nationals and American citizens. Some of these marriages took place in Connecticut.
This crime has been occurring for years in Connecticut.
In 2019, Jodian Stephenson—herself a Jamaican immigrant who entered a sham marriage and the operator of Stephenson Immigration and Legal Services—pleaded guilty to arranging 28 marriages in Connecticut, including her own. Then, a year after that, Stephenson’s husband, Sheldon, also pleaded guilty to helping Jodian arrange four of these marriages. In 2018, their co-conspirator, Donovan Lawrence, who operated Donovan Accounting Services, LLC, in Bridgeport, pleaded guilty for his role in arranging sham marriages. Additionally, four U.S. citizens and one noncitizen who participated in the marriages arranged by Jodian and Sheldon Stephenson, and Lawrence, also pleaded guilty to fraudulent marriages.
They would charge immigrants between $17,000 and $20,000 for these marriages, and then pay the American citizen between $2,000 and $4,000 for their participation.
The “Act Concerning Justices of the Peace” will be discussed at the Planning and Development Committee’s public hearing on March 11.
Was this article helpful?
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
