The Fraud Interview
Perhaps the greatest fear of any married couple looking ahead to their green card interview is the prospect of ending up in what is called a fraud interview.Couples who were unable to convince the interviewing USCIS officer that their marriage was legitimate end up in a very intense and stressful fraud interview.
This interview’s purpose is to put enough pressure on you and your spouse so that you will simply withdraw your Adjustment of Status application and admit that you were engaged in marriage fraud. Given that definition, some people would describe it more as an interrogation since the fraud interview only comes about when the interviewing officer suspects that your marriage is based on false premises. Not on love, but on the sole purpose of obtaining a green card for one of you.
During this type of interview, you and your spouse will be separated and asked a series of identical questions, then both of your answers will be compared. If both of your answers match, then the case that the two of you are a bona fide married couple is bolstered. If the answers, however, don’t match, you will be in serious jeopardy not only of losing your chance at obtaining the green card, but of facing possible criminal prosecution.
What makes this tactic so stressful is that both spouses have no idea what the other one said while they were separated. They also will have to contend with the possible strong-arm tactics of the interviewer who might resort to intimidation in an effort to get you to “confess” to your crime.
The officer might tell you that if you choose to continue with the interview you will face certain criminal penalties if it is determined that you have lied and committed perjury. There is usually a form of good cop, bad cop here where you might be told that if you choose to withdraw the green card application at this point, then you might escape any criminal prosecution.
And the suspicions of the interviewing officer may not be aroused just by something you or your spouse may have said. It could also be brought about simply by the appearance of your marriage, how both of you look together. If the husband is in his sixties and his wife is in her twenties, then both of them can expect an uphill battle at the interview. Their problems will be compounded if they do not share a common language or if there is a large difference in their cultural or educational backgrounds.
This type of couple has to be extra vigilent in preparing for their interview because they will be under the suspicion the moment they set foot in the officer’s cubicle. This may sound unfair, but you have to remember it’s the job of the USCIS officer to look for any clues that might indicate a potential case of marriage fraud. So if a sixty-five year old, over-weight, bald, retiree from Phoenix is coming into the interview with a twenty-one year old model from the Ukraine who doesn’t speak a word of English, expect the USCIS officer to have some degree of skepticism.
Of course every couple never actually believes they will end up in a fraud interview. They think any outside observer could clearly see how much in love they are and how great their marriage is just by looking at them. And the interview may begin with this belief shared by the interviewing officer, but one small remark or response from either spouse can turn what began as an amicable smooth interview into an eventual interrogation. It may be an inadvertent comment you or your spouse make, it may be just something that officer finds suspicious in one of your answers, but some aspect of your marriage is giving the officer the impression that something is not right. And if these suspicions are not quickly and effectively dealt with by the couple being interviewed, they will soon find themselves in a much less hospitable place, the fraud interview.
