Representatives of the Republican party intend to toughen the immigration law that allows thousands of minors to be in the shackles of child marriage.
The fact is that under current rules, a teenager from the US has the right to apply for a visa for a spouse of any age from another country. Similarly can enter adult citizen of the United States of America juvenile bride (or groom) living outside of the country. There are no age limits because it plays a decisive role the actual legality of the marriage.
In other words, the Service of citizenship and immigration USA (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services – USCIS) often approves such statements, if state laws allow marriage of persons under the age of majority. By the way, in overwhelming majority of regions such unions are not forbidden. This loophole is willing to use as ordinary immigrants who want to be in the U.S., and traffickers, registered sham marriages.
The bill, introduced with senators Tom Cotton, johnny Ernst and Ron Johnson, provides to restrict the flow of such applications to persons under 18 years of age. This applies to both the petitioner and the person who applies for a visa. This initiative appeared after it became known that for the past 11 years, USCIS has approved more than 8.5 thousand of visas related to child marriage.
When legislators began to understand this situation, we found out interesting details. From 2007 to 2017, the Service of citizenship and immigration the United States has approved more than 5.5 thousand applications for entry into the country of underage individuals. 3 thousand of the applicants have been teenagers wishing to obtain visas for adult spouses. It is noteworthy that in two cases the applicants were children who were only 13 years old, and more than 95% of minors involved in child marriage, turned out to be girls.
Human rights activists support the bill submitted by the Republicans. At the same time, they note that the problem lies much deeper. Child marriage is an outdated phenomenon, which in the current situation often leads to the violation of the rights of minors. Unfortunately, to date, only two States – new Jersey and Delaware were forbidden to join the Union of persons under the age of 18.
