UNITED STATES: Confusion Over New Laws Prompts Rush to the Altar

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Mar 25 1997 (IPS) - Donna Watson’s proposal for marriage from her year-long boyfriend, Zachary, came with a deadline: April 1, the date on which many undocumented immigrants in the United States believe they could face penalties if they are not naturalised citizens.

Although Watkins was in love with her Moroccan boyfriend, she wondered if they were ready for marriage. They belonged to different religions and cultures, she worried. “But Zachary was so sweet, offering to take me to marriage counseling, so I thought we should get married quickly,” says Watkins, who spoke to IPS on condition that her real name not be used.

Weeks later, however, the marriage was off. “It turned out that getting married by April 1 doesn’t really help your chances of becoming naturalised,” Watkins explains.

This couple may have reconsidered their wedding plans, but others are queuing up to get married. Immigrants are marrying U.S. citizens at a rapid rate, in the mistaken belief that the Apr. 1 deadline — All Fool’s Day — is the last date by which such marriages can help to speed up naturalisation proceedings. (Under U.S. law, a spouse of a U.S. citizen can be naturalised if he or she first lives three years as a legal resident of the United States.)

The city clerk’s offices in the five boroughs of New York City have all reported being swamped by the flood of new marriages.

A civil marriage in New York normally takes about half an hour to perform, an officer at the Queens City Clerk’s Office explains. But with the daily lines of more than 100 couples outside the office each day, the wait could be four hours or more, she explains. And that wait may be for nothing.

“Most of the (rush for marriages) is based on myth and confusion,” says Roseann Micallef, executive director of the New York-based Centre for Immigrants’ Rights. “By Apr. 1, some of the provisions of last year’s Immigration Reform Act go into effect, but not any that makes or breaks anyone’s chances to become a citizen.”

Under laws passed last year by Congress to restrict immigration to the United States, April 1 was to be the cut-off date for undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States without paying a cash fine. However, under pressure from supporters of immigration, the threat of cash penalties against illegal immigrants was lifted this month, Micallef says.

Still, with little information about the new laws reaching the immigrants themselves, many have mistakenly come to see April 1 as a major cutoff date for becoming naturalised through marriage to a citizen.

“If you miss that deadline, it could take 10 years before they look at your application,” one prospective suitor, who calls himself Ahmed, insists.

That’s not true, says Micallef, who argues that even people getting married before April face the same delays as everyone else in having their applications processed by the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS). “The delays are related to the volume of petitions that the INS has,” she says. “Right now, they’re swamped.”

The problem, immigration activists argue, is that the recent changes in immigration laws have created a system in which many groups of immigrants stand to lose either federal welfare benefits or their right to stay in the country under a confusing array of deadlines that kick in this year. “It’s creating a panic,” Micallef argues.

For example, New York state — home to more than 100,000 of the roughly 900,000 documented immigrants who arrive in the United States each year — last week extended a deadline for legal immigrants to receive U.S. “food stamps”, which help to pay for basic foodstuffs.

Under new welfare laws passed by Congress last year, most legal immigrants are to lose their welfare benefits, including food stamps, by April 1. But New York Governor George Pataki — a conservative Republican who supported much of the welfare legislation — objected to the food stamp cutoff as harsh, and received a waiver from Washington, allowing the state to pay food stamps to more than 150,000 immigrants through Aug. 22.

Meanwhile, the federal Social Security Administration has begun to inform some 544,000 elderly and disabled immigrants that they will lose their federal benefits if they are not naturalised as U.S. citizens by August or September. In several states, those legal immigrants also stand to lose their right to receive federally funded medical assistance, or Medicaid, by that deadline.

“The rush to get married is directly related to the rush for naturalising,” says Micallef. “People are jumping at whatever they can,” with time running out for many categories of immigrants to comply with the new laws. “The government is guilty of passing laws which are mean-spirited and (constitute) an attack on immigrants,” she contends.