A unique and interesting way to enter America….
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1079176,00050001.htm
US citizenship at all cost
It was an ingenious plan — until it was cracked open and the law caught up.
Paramjit Singh Taggar, an Indian American living in California, wanted to help his brother and sister migrate from Punjab, circumventing the mandatory 13-year waiting period for siblings. So he hit on the idea of a phony wedding scheme, according to a grand jury indictment unveiled in a US district court.
The first step involved Taggar (44) ‘divorcing’ his wife Harbans Kaur Hothi (51) — this was in 1994. The two then went to India. Taggar ‘married’ his sister Pritam Kaur (35) while Hothi ‘married’ her (by then former) brother-in-law Gurdeep Singh Atwal (43).
After the sham marriages, Taggar and Hothi — naturalised American citizens, they have two children — filed petitions to return to the US with their ‘new spouses’. The petitions were cleared and the two couples left for the US, according to a report in the FresnoBee.
Once in California, the fake marriages paved the way for real ones. Atwal married a woman in Fremont (they had a child in July 2002). And Pritam married a Sikh in Hayward (they have two children).
Immigration sleuths became suspicious when they found Taggar and Hothi living together – despite their ‘divorce’.
Investigations conducted in the US and India led to the arrests of all four. Each of them could get up to 10 years in prison for making false statements to immigration authorities and five years for entering into a conspiracy. Atwal and Pritam face possible deportation if convicted.
