Next Steps Weighed After Marriage Reports To Feds

What happens when a city official reports your marriage to immigration authorities?

Immigration lawyers are working to make sense of that question as local families prepare for what could be years of scrutiny, uncertainty, and anxiety.

On Thursday, City Hall mailed out letters notifying 78 couples that a city official reported them to federal immigration authorities.

That city employee was Registrar of Vital Statistics Trish Clark, the official in charge of maintaining marriage licenses and certificates among other records. The city placed Clark on administrative leave at the end of November after discovering that she had reported at least 78 out of 215 marriage licenses issued between late August and late November as potentially fraudulent to federal immigration authorities.

Clark made these reports after receiving an email from the state Department of Public Health (DPH) that perhaps erroneously told her she ​“should report” couples she found to be ​“suspicious” to Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS), the agency within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that investigates suspected marriage fraud.

The city is investigating whether Clark violated the mayor’s ​“Welcoming City” executive order, the policy making New Haven a ​“Sanctuary City” for undocumented immigrants.

In a previous interview with the Independent, Clark said she had done nothing wrong. An email message obtained by the Independent showed that a state official informed Clark that she ​“should” report ​“suspicious” marriages to federal authorities. (Read more on that here.)

Four local immigration attorneys — Michael Boyle, Glenn Formica, Maureen Abell of New Haven Legal Assistance Association, and Kica Matos of the National Immigration Law Center — offered perspectives on what the incident means both for the couples whom Clark reported and for the city as a whole.

What are the obligations, if any, of a registrar of vital statistics who suspects marriage fraud?

The city’s Welcoming City executive order says that city officials are not allowed to investigate or disclose a constituent’s immigration status when not mandated by state or federal law.

And currently, local officials are not required — on either the state or federal level — to do anything if they suspect immigration fraud. 

Clark had received an email from state Department of Public Health (DPH) official Katie Sehi stating that she ​“should report” marriages she found to be ​“suspicious.” But that’s not actually the department’s standard advice, as Department of Public Health spokesperson Christopher Boyle confirmed on Monday.

The four attorneys the Independent spoke with for this article all argued that it would not make sense for such a requirement to exist, given that the Office of Vital Statistics interacts fairly briefly with marrying couples and can access relatively little information about them — including whether or not they are U.S. citizens to begin with.

“The idea that a registrar of marriages could have so much insight and so much knowledge to make a justifiable conclusion in that number of cases, it just boggles the mind,” said Boyle.

Boyle said he could imagine a role for the Office of Vital Statistics in reporting fraud if, for example, ​“there were a corrupt justice of the peace who is arranging marriages between people who obviously don’t know each other.” In this case, Boyle said, the number of couples who were reported to the federal government is ​“kind of stunning.” 

Matos noted at a protest on Monday that Clark is also highly unlikely to have ever been trained in identifying marriage fraud.

The marriage certificate itself is of practically no import to FDNS, according to Formica.

“They put absolutely no credence in the fact that two people went to the town hall and got a marriage certificate. I’ve never seen anyone ever look at a marriage certificate during the interview,” Formica said. ​“It’s such an irrelevant document, in the sense that they put no weight on it.”

What can be made of the example Clark cited as a reason to suspect marriage fraud?

Not much is known right now about what motivated Clark to report at least 78 marriages to immigration.

The only concrete example of a possible reason behind Clark’s skepticism comes from an email to DPH in which Clark wrote, ​“We have had too many couples to count requesting marriage licenses that can’t fill out the section for their parents’ names.” 

It’s unclear whether Clark was referring here to people who didn’t know their own parents’ names or didn’t know their spouse’s parents’ names.

Formica, Boyle, and Abell each spoke to reasons that a person might not be able or willing to write down their parents’ names on a government form other than marriage fraud.

Someone may not have met their spouse’s parent ​“because the parent is in a different country, the parent’s deceased, the parent wasn’t really a good parent and the spouse doesn’t talk about them very much,” Formica said.

“Relationships are kind of funny things,” he added. ​“Particularly if your parent was abusive or neglectful or a painful memory, you might just not talk about it.”

Formica said he has witnessed some of his own clients, including U.S. citizens, decline to fill out their parents’ names on marriage certificates because their parents are undocumented. ​“If that parent happens to be here and is undocumented, I can tell you from experience that there’s hesitation to put a parent’s name on any document for fear that some idiot might refer them to immigration,” Formica said.

Some people might not know their own parents’ names because they were raised by other family members, said Boyle. Some might have received little literacy education and may struggle with spelling names, noted Abell.

So the example Clark gave does not necessarily mean that the marriages were fraudulent.

What could happen to the couples who were reported?

The short answer is that there’s a lot of uncertainty.

First of all, it’s not entirely clear if all of the couples whom Clark reported involved a non-citizen. With the help of an external company, City Hall is still investigating whether every couple’s citizenship or immigration status was available to her. 

Moreover, it’s not clear whether all, or even most, of the couples she reported included a spouse who was planning to apply for a green card.

It’s possible that Clark flagged someone whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was already looking to deport, Formica said — in which case, that person could be detained and forced out of the United States.

When asked about how the immigration reports could affect those who were planning to adjust their immigration status after marriage, lawyers offered different takes.

All spousal green card applicants undergo an interview with USCIS to prove that they are in a ​“bona fide” marriage. If FDNS suspects that the couple got married solely for immigration purposes, they investigate more thoroughly: potentially conducting home visits, showing up at work, interviewing neighbors.

“It’s really pretty invasive stuff,” Formica said.

With the caveat that much is uncertain — including the nature of the information Clark provided to federal authorities — ​“it’s presumed that FDNS is going to investigate” the families who were flagged, Formica said. ​“That’s a big deal. It’s going to take a lot longer. They’re always going to be under a cloud of suspicion.”

“In my opinion, FDNS doesn’t have a high standard for what we’d call probable cause,” he added. ​“As soon as you’re flagged, you’re flagged.” 

At the same time, Formica and Abell both pointed out that it’s common for FDNS to receive accusations of marriage fraud from disgruntled or abusive ex-partners of the married couple.

Formica surmised that many of those couples will see ​“a couple of years’ delay” in getting a green card, but that FDNS may not take the reports very seriously. 

Boyle offered a different take. ​“A local official contacting them to say something bad is the kind of thing immigration tends to be really interested in,” he said. ​“They view it as more important than regular evidence.”

He noted that the impact of Clark’s reports may depend on the individual immigration officer handling each application. 

There’s also uncertainty about what could happen if any of the major Republican candidates, who have all campaigned on harsher immigration enforcement, get elected as president in 2024.

If any couples are found to have committed marriage fraud, the spouse who is not a citizen would face a lifetime ban on immigrating to the U.S. and possible deportation.

What should those families do?

The attorneys said families who were flagged and are planning to apply for a change in immigration status should seek out a lawyer and document their marriage as much as possible.

“Put all your bills in both names. Bank accounts in both names and use it for everything,” Boyle said. ​“If people can afford it, auto insurance and health insurance.”

He said that couples should take a lot of photographs together, save text messages and written communication that documents their relationship, and make sure to have back-ups and copies. 

Some couples are at more risk of scrutiny than others. 

FDNS tends to look more closely at interracial and interfaith couples, spouses with a large age gap, spouses who are not fluent in the same language (“I’ve done a couple of interesting cases where people didn’t speak the same language and it was real,” Boyle said), spouses who have different education levels, and spouses who live in separate homes. 

Meanwhile, couples who have a child together are less likely to be under suspicion.

Boyle noted that even if a couple breaks up before applying for a green card, the fraud accusation may follow the spouses if they get married again. Should one of those spouses attempt to get a green card through a different marriage, they will ​“have to prove both marriages — you can’t just prove the new marriage and go on with your life,” Boyle said. 

“This is a lifelong problem and fraud doesn’t have a time limit. It’s with you your whole life.”

New Haven Legal Assistance Association is currently working with other local organizations to provide a unified resource for families whom the Office of Vital Statistics flagged to immigration.

Matos has called on the city to provide this legal help. ​“It is essential that the city provide resources to ensure that impacted immigrants have access to legal representation,” she said.

In the meantime, Abell said, if families are anxious and want to connect with legal help immediately, they can reach out to resources like New Haven Legal Assistance, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, and attorneys affiliated with the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

What does this incident reveal about New Haven's status as a sanctuary city?

So far, there’s no known evidence that other city employees were involved in reporting members of the public to immigration authorities. It seems, as Abell put it, that ​“this was one person’s vigilante action.”

But even though Clark is now on administrative leave, the city now contends with fear among undocumented immigrants that interacting with local government may get them reported to immigration — the very fear that its sanctuary city policy was designed to mitigate.

Matos, who helped create the Elm City ID Program as the city’s Community Services Adminstrator, wrote in a text message that Clark’s actions have ​“created a chilling effect in the immigrant community. To put it simply, immigrants are now afraid of City Hall.”

She added, ​“This incident has set us back, undermining the painstaking efforts that we have engaged in over the last 20 years to create a welcoming city for all.”

Matos and other immigrant rights activists are calling for the Board of Alders to codify the Welcoming City executive order as an ordinance, which could have more teeth and would require a public, collaborative process in order to change.

Some attorneys argued that the city could have provided more training to municipal employees on how to actually put the Welcoming City executive order into practice.

Vital Statistics ​“is one of the frontline departments that deals with immigrants,” said Boyle. ​“It’s quite clear that although this [order] exists, nobody gave much thought to what this frontline department should do about it.”

In a statement, Mayor Justin Elicker wrote that his office has reminded city staff of the Welcoming City executive order. He said that ​“any reporting by the Office of Vital Statistics to outside government agencies” must now be approved by Health Director Maritza Bond. 

He wrote, ​“I also hope how that we’ve handled this situation – in a very proactive, transparent and accountable manner – conveys this commitment” to being a ​“welcoming” city. ​“Once concerns were surfaced, we took immediate action, we launched an investigation and, based on the findings of that investigation, appropriate action will be taken.”

Elicker added, ​“Ultimately, trust is something you earn with words and actions, and I think both our words and actions reflect that.”

Abell noted that any city will likely employ people who disagree with its immigration policies. ​“Realistically, we know that in cities where the local government is in general hostile, there are still going to be people who are supportive [of immigrants]. And vice versa, in a city that tries to be welcoming, there are still going to be people who aren’t,” she said.

More revealing than an individual employee’s action, Abell said, is what the city decides to do about it. ​“I think how the city as a whole responds is going to be what really tells us what we need to know about New Haven.”