Here Come Many More Mail-Order Brides: Why IMBRA Fails Women Escaping the Russian Federation

HERE COME MANY MORE MAIL-ORDER BRIDES: WHY IMBRA FAILS WOMEN ESCAPING THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION CHRISTINA L. POLLARD* I. INTRODUCTION The business of brokering mail-order brides sparks a tension between those who use the services of an international marriage broker and those who recognize its potential for abuse. Proponents claim that it is simply a forum for men and women to meet each other and fall in love, placing it in the same category as "match.com" and singles clubs.' Advocates argue that parties to the arrangement should remain free to make choices for themselves. 2 Opponents of regulating so-called "international marriage organizations" or "brokers" ("marriage brokers") eschew business restriction schemes and any additional immigration restrictions on the influx of the chosen brides. 3 Advocates for restriction of the business cry foul at the practices of marriage brokers. 4 They view the mail-order bride business as one "of growing epidemic proportions." 5 Members of Congress who push for reform place the industry in the human trafficking context and describe it Copyright © 2018, Christina L. Pollard * Visiting Assistant Professor and Director, Immigration Law Clinic, University of Arkansas School of Law at Fayetteville. J.D. Seattle University School of Law 1994. LL.M. Georgetown University Law Center 2007. 1 deeply thank several people who helped me during this journey: Andrew Schoenholtz, Rachel Settlage, Tiffany Murphy, my research assistant-turned-colleague, Natali Magafla, and my supportive husband, King Pollard. I dedicate this article to my mother, the late Dr. Neva Carolyn Owens Misner, who understood well before I did that my purpose is to teach and write about the things about which I am passionate. 'Erin K. Pleasant, The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act: Protecting Foreign Women or Punishing American Men?, 29 CAMPBELL L. REv. 311, 311-12 (2007). 2 Christina Del Vecchio, Note, Match-Made in Cyberspace: How Best to Regulate the International Mail-Order Bride Industry, 46 COLUM. J. TRANSNAT'L L. 177, 181 (2007). 1d. at 200. 4 Id. at 184-85. 5 Human Trafficking: Mail Order Bride Abuses: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on E. Asian & Pac. Affairs of the S. Comm. on Foreign Relations, 108th Cong. 5 (2004) [hereinafter Human Trafficking] (statement of Sen. Maria Cantwell). 610 [46:609 CAPITAL UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW as "one of the dark clouds of... globalization." 6 Some scholars indeed make the leap, with little explanation, from mail-order bride to trafficking and domestic violence, as though one reality inevitably leads to another. 7 Additional opponents claim that mail-order brides are exploited, lied to, and enticed in such a way that their vulnerability makes them impervious to the possible negative consequences. Instead, the brides are motivated by the draw of a better life in the United States with an American husband. 8 Victim advocates, including members of Congress who believe the industry must be controlled, favor regulating the industry to ensure full notice to the prospective brides of the possible consequences of their new adventure. 9 The reality lies, as it often does, somewhere between these two extremes. Some matches result in bona fide, happy marriages that survive the scrutiny of the immigration services and do not necessitate 911 calls relating to abuse. 1l American bridegrooms have imported foreign brides since the birth of the United States, and a practice this entrenched in the American experience is unlikely to disappear." Yet, the complaints of 6 Senator Sam Brownback (Kansas) stated at a subcommittee hearing: [Senator] Paul [Welistone] and I both looked at this and said this is one of the dark clouds of the globalization, where you get in a world that opens up and people can travel more freely and the fall of the wall and communism and people are able to move. But this has been one of the dark sides of it, and we really have to continue to be real vigilant. Id. at 13 (statement of Sen. Sam Brownback, Member, S. Comm. on Foreign Relations). 7 Del Vecchio, supra note 2, at 181. 8 1d. at 194. 9 ld. at 196-97. ' 0 Id. at 213. 11 The history of the mail-order bride industry is beyond the scope of this article. See Human Trafficking, supra note 5, at 14 (statement of Michele A. Clark, Co-Director, Prot. Project of the Foreign Policy Inst., Johns Hopkins Univ.); Suzanne H. Jackson, To Honor and Obey: Trafficking In "Mail-Order Brides", 70 GEo. WASH. L. REv. 475, 482 89 (2002); IMMIGRATION & NATURALIZATION SERV., INTERNATIONAL MATCHMAKING ORGANIZATIONS: A REPORT TO CONGRESS, (Feb. 1999), http://library.niwap.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/IMM-Art-IntrtnlMatchmaking.ReportCongrees.pdf [https://perma.cc/L5YB-FHJY] [hereinafter 1999 INS REPORT]; Christine S.Y. Chun, The Mail-Order Bride Industry: The Perpetuation of Transnational Economic Inequalities and (continued) 2018] MAIL-ORDER BRIDES: IMBRA FAILS RUSSIANS men, who simply wish to marry their mail-order brides and bring them to the United States without complication, were unheard by Congress. Instead, Congress created another immigration law, the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA), 12 amending a statute already filled with restrictions on family-based and marriage-based immigration, no matter how that marriage originated. 3 Perhaps no entity has the right to take away a prospective mail-order bride's prerogative to seek marriage in such a fashion. It can be degrading to dictate to a woman that she may not make such a choice. It also may be unjust to categorize all men who marry mail-order brides as abusers. Perhaps the male prerogative to choose a bride in such a manner should be protected as well. IMBRA has not curtailed the choice of men and women to mate via participation with international marriage brokers, and the market continues to thrive.' 4 Unfortunately, marriage brokers rarely present to the potential bride a realistic picture of what she may face in the United States. Brokers traditionally were not required to, nor did they tend to, tell brides of the risk of domestic violence, nor did they warn of the possibility of complicated ramifications of failed immigrant spouse visa petitions. 5 And most certainly, mail-order brides lack the opportunity to get to know their future husbands well enough to discern possible "red flags." IMBRA, enacted in 2005, placed a measure of control over the industry; 1 6 however, the effectiveness of this legislation falls short of preventing abuse, by eliminating the "push factors" a prospective mail-order bride may face, and by demolishing the demand presented by the American men who shop for brides online. The "push factors" matter when reviewing the legislation that purports to protect the very women compelled to use the services of an online broker to arrange a marriage to an unknown man thousands of miles away. Many American women find it inconceivable that any woman would subject herself to the scrutiny and risk of being advertised on the internet as a potential bride without knowing what kind of person may be willing to pay thousands of dollars to make her his wife. Yet, something compels Stereotypes, 17 U. PA. J. INT'L ECON. L. 1155, 1157-59 (1996); MILA GLODAVA & RICHARD ONIZUKA, MAIL-ORDER BRIDES: WOMEN FOR SALE (1994). 12 Pleasant, supra note 1, at 315-16. 13 Id. 14 Del Vecchio, supra note 2, at 180-81. 15 Id. at 196-97. 16 Pleasant, supra note 1, at 315-16. 612 [46:609 CAPITAL UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW women from particular countries, and heavily in the last few decades from the former Soviet Union, to make these choices. The question remains: does one choose to become a mail-order bride, or does the reality of existence in Russia prove so dismal that the industry provides the only viable option? Important realities exist in the Russian Federation that can help explain the sustained movement by women to offer themselves as brides to American men through marriage brokers. There are also reasons why lawmakers and domestic violence victim advocates espouse the nexus between mail-order brides and domestic violence. This Article explores these influential factors with an analytical eye toward legal definitions, immigration provisions, the potential for abusive dynamics crafted in the very structure of the mail-order marriage, and laws that purport to offer protection. Part I of this Article provides an in-depth examination of the conditions in Russia for women from the Soviet era to today's tumultuous society under President Putin. It argues that many incentives exist for Russian women to commit themselves to a future with an unknown American husband using an international marriage broker. Critical analysis of IMBRA's effectiveness cannot take place without a full examination of the multiple "push factors" that lead women (the supply) to use the international marriage broker business to find a U.S. husband (the demand). If the "push factors" ceased to exist, there would likely be no need for IMBRA. Part H examines the conditions that mail-order brides face, conditions that make brides susceptible to domestic violence. Throughout the beginning of the twenty-first century, several high-profile murders of mail-order brides dominated the media. This Article argues that such murders will not necessarily end with the passage of IMBRA, because immigration policy still contains an imbalance of power between the U.S. citizen-husband and immigrant-wife. This Part also examines the dynamics of domestic violence and the common characteristics of men who use international marriage brokers. Both factors contribute to the tendency of domestic violence in the relationship. Part I analyzes IMBRA and its legislative roots but also provides a critique of its gaps and shortcomings. After more than a decade and even helpful amendments in 2013, IMBRA still has not been fully MAIL-ORDER BRIDES: IMBRA FAILS RUSSIANS implemented, 17 and gaping holes remain in its effectiveness. While...