In 1997, Indle King Jr.’s wife divorced him. King had beaten her head against a wall, and she sought and got a protective order to keep King away from her. King felt victimized by the divorce settlement (still does, probably).
King’s first wife had been what people call a mail-order bride. So King went back to the internet and found a new wife, Anastasia Soloviev from Kyrgyzstan. Two years into their marriage, 20-year-old Anastasia King had realized that she married an abusive monster, and was seeking a divorce. Not wanting to pay a second divorce settlement, King recruited his friend Dan Larson to help him murder Anastasia. King, a big man, sat on Anastasia’s chest to hold her down while Larson strangled her.
They dumped Anastasia’s body. Then the newly-single King went back to the internet to find his third mail-order bride.
Fortunately, Anastasia’s body was found before King could close that transaction. King wound up getting a 27-year sentence (newspaper accounts say King’s testimony on his own behalf cleared up any doubt the jury was feeling). The trial was big news in Washington state, where Anastasia had lived, and the issue came to the attention of Washington Senator Maria Cantwell and Representative Rick Larsen. As a result, Congress this month passed The International Marriage Broker Act, which requires potential mail-order brides to be informed if their suitors have criminal histories or have had domestic violence complaints taken out against them.
Actually, there’s a lot more to the legislation; Bean, posting on her blog for the first time in months, describes the legislation in detail. There’s too much for me to sum up, so go over there and read her post. From Bean’s post:
Bean also discusses the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. The most disturbing bit? In 2000, Congress created a class of visas – the “U visa” – for witnesses to and victims of “rape, torture, trafficking, incest, domestic violence, sexual assault, abusive sexual contact, prostitution, sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation” and a variety of other crimes. U visas are needed; they can give crime victims a way to avoid the impossible choice between staying with an abusive criminal or being deported.
Five years after Congress passed the U visa law, however, the law might as well have never been passed. Why? Because the Bush administration has refused to release rules for U visas, meaning that no one can get a U visa. (Women who would qualify for a U visa have been getting by with halfway measures and year-to-year visas in the meanwhile – if they’re lucky.) Sheer incompetence, or cold-hearted indifference? Who can even tell anymore?
UPDATE: See Ginmar’s post on this subject, as well.
Ah, more nice, respectful arguments.
Squid, that’s fine for you and I hope your second try works. But kindly accept that other people may have different ways of finding someone and it’s wrong to make laws impeding them. It’s not like the guys who go overseas are dumb and never tried all that stuff you said.
And Q Grrl…Damn! With a girls of your ‘social skills’ so plentiful on the scene in the US I just can’t understand why guys look elsewhere for their wives. So much man-hating packed in a couple of paragraphs. What was that opposite word someone posted for ‘misogynist’ a few days ago? The eyes already glaze over after seeing ‘fragile male ego’ in the first sentence. And you talk of showing respect? Ha! Stop swallowing the party line about guys and foreign wives and maybe you’ll have something useful to contribute to the discussion.
Well Amp surprise surprise we don’t like each other much. But I’ve been nicer to you than anyone else who ever advocated trampling all over my rights and those of my friends. If you’re going to get all knicker twisty over ticky tacky stuff people write here, don’t be surprised if I call you on your bullshit bias and start talking a little trash of my own.
Anyway folks that’s it for me here. The basketball’s starting, among numerous other better things I have to do. You’ve pretty much shown me all you’ve got to say on this subject and honestly you’ve got nothing. You’ve got no real backup for your positions other than airy fairy theories and your uninformed notions of what and who this whole business is about.
I’m confident this law will be flushed by the judiciary in good time. But if not and some day in the future I have a friend who’s thrown in jail and separated from his wife because of the handiwork of people like you I’ll hold you in my loving memory. I’m sure Stalin will be applauding from somewhere.
No, no, Mak. Get your dumbshit stereotype right. The reason guys like you have to look for brides overseas is because we’re all lesbians here in the U.S.
I wish there were more girls [sic] with my type of social skills on the scene. The sex is always hotter that way.
Mahku: stop swallowing the party line that man-hating is a bad thing.
;)
If guys are “looking for wives” then I have a shit load of criticism about their fragile male egos. ‘kay?
You know what? I just now get why the IMB defenders who have posted here fill me to the brim with an utter lack of sympathy. They don’t seem to have a whole lot of interest in the culture from which they are trying to find a wife. That and the fact that we haven’t seen any women posting here on how great it was to find a Russian husband. Oh, and the fact that their issues with IMBRA extend to concerns about American men – no mention of the stomping on the rights of American women.
When one goes looking for a life-mate, one usually does the search for themselves. For example, if I want to marry a one legged, mustachioed, tatooed, beringed pirate I would set sail on a pirate ship. Likewise, if I wanted to marry a Russian woman, I would spend a lot of time in Russia. I have no problem with either scenario – tastes/fetishes are as tastes/fetishes do, after all. However, I would not go through a PMB (Pirate Marriage Broker) to find me the pirate of my dreams. If I don’t actually spend a significant amount of time in Pirate culture, how will I know whether or not I really want to marry a Pirate? Will I be compatible with somebody in whom Pirate culture is strongly ingrained? I can’t answer this without spending significant amounts of time around Pirates & Pirate culture. If, on the other hand, I just had a Pirate fetish & enough money and I wasn’t really looking for a life-mate I suppose that I’d consider going through a PMB to find a pirate.
… or the counter point of all these straight men whinging about not being able to find a partner; they should try being a gay man living in the closet. Never seemed to stop those guys from hooking up.
Well, Q, always bear in mind that “lesbian” and “social skills” would go hand in hand for the Maks who walk among us. It’s a shame you have to harsh their buzz all the time by refusing to take either as criticism.
Yeah, maybe I should just go around touting “Damn Skippy” every time they call me out!
[… where *is* that island Falwell promised us in the 80’s?]
They paved it and put up a Mal-Wart. >:
Okay, that’s enough. Banned.
(I know, I know, s/he said they were done posting here anyway. But in my experience, anti-feminists who post “I’m done here, bye” almost always come back.)
Amp Wrote:
Woah!! By golly, that’s getting to the heart of the matter. Now, you have really got my curiosity peaked. Ok, but you can’t keep me hanging –
1) what exactly do you mean by “politically impossible?” (“PI”)
2) why do you think the law’s application to X may be (or is?) PI?
3) if the lawmakers did not include the exemption of X in the law (that is, the law was silent regarding X), would all X be classified as IMB’s (based on the definition of an IMB in the law)?
But in my experience, anti-feminists who post “I’m done here, bye” almost always come back.
Feminists too. ;)
Amp Wrote:
“It’s politically unrealistic to think that such a law could have been passed for all dating sites. When doing X & Y to protect women is not politically viable because X is politically impossible, it doesn’t make it therefore okay to not do Y to protect women. Politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the ideal..”
Woah!! By golly, that’s getting to the heart of the matter. Now, you have really got my curiosity peaked. Ok, but you can’t keep me hanging –
1) what exactly do you mean by “politically impossible?” (“PI”)
2) why do you think the law’s application to X may be (or is?) PI?
3) if the lawmakers did not include the exemption of X in the law (that is, the law was silent regarding X), would all X be classified as IMB’s (based on the definition of an IMB in the law)?
your right people always come back to see how things have progressed. I couldn’t help myself after my break. At least the monitor has shown her true colors.. the man hating and intollerance for anti or or even non feminists is now in full swing..
there will never be any compromise in this blog because the feminists posting here are on the fringe.. thank God we have Federal Courts and Judges that do not make assumptions that men seeking a foreign partners are deviants and criminals. Just like I do not assume lesbians are deviants that should be regulated and forced to give up their personal history to communicate with another lesbian..
IMBRA will go down in defeat, because the law violates the 1st and 5th amendments of the constitution.. the process has already begun and on March 20, 2006, the Judge in Georgia will make the restraining order permanent
So I will check out availability in the “Useless Federal Regulation Graveyard” to see if they can take in one more law that tramples all over the constitution…. oh, i already called and there is plenty of room..
maybe your supporters that push through laws like IMBRA should consult with an attorney that actually understands constitutional law before wasting so much time and energy .. IMBRA could have been a good law if radical feminism would have stayed out of it.. “damn skippy”
Just as an FYI:
These posts were made by Gary Bala, an immigration attorney:
Immigration Regulations on IMBRA
Today, March 14, 2006, I spoke with the Director of Regulatory Management at USCIS (Immigration Service).
Immigration is working on the promulgating regulations to implement the
IMBRA law. These are the rules which may help to clarify many questions
under the new law. It has to go through various drafts and supervisory
approvals. No decision has been made yet if the IMBRA regs. will be
“interim” or “proposed”, but a public comment period is expected. The publicwill be allowed to comment on the implementing regulations, which will be taken into account before the final regs. are issued.
(The Federal Court’s TRO Order did not come up in our conversation. I did
not raise it, nor did I feel that it was appropriate to do so in that
context.)
I was informed that the regs. are expected no sooner than in 6 months from
Jan. 2006, the date of the law; in other words June 2006.
The regulations are just meant to help implement and clarify the law. They are instructive in nature and meant only as guidance. That is all.
It does NOT mean that until they are released, there is no law and no one
has to do anything. It does NOT mean that until they are released, “they
(Immigration) are confused” or won’t implement the law or anything else. The law is still the law is still the law, even before the regulations are
published.
The regulations will most likely apply to all parts of the IMBRA law, not
just the part about filing for a fiancee visa. We just have to wait and see
exactly what the regulations say when they are released for the public
comment period.
Furthermore, the public comment period does NOT necessarily imply public hearings, administrative hearings, public “town halls”, public votes, or anything else. Most public comments are done individually by a person, company or member of the public, and are allowed and expected by mail, E-mail or fax only, and only to the designated Immigration Office.
That’s that. Take it as you will.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
Man-hating? Geez, how stereotypical can you get?
Banned.
I see this as a positive, but I fear, as with most legislation and regulation, that it will fall far short of solving the problems it was enacted to protect. I just hope that the failure is not as spectacular as FEMA’s post Katrina.
I fear there will be loopholes upon loopholes, and I will just have to reserve judgement until the regs are released and the law has been in effect for awhile.
Roofles. The man hating ‘monitor’ is not a her, it’s a he. Who’s true colors are showing now?
Ampersand, does your name by any chance come from the character in the comic, Y-the Last man? Or is it just in reference to the symbol? Just curious.
Mendy writes:
My god, don’t even get me started. I live close to the Gulf and that whole region is still basically untouched by the supposed FEMA help that Bush promised. I don’t think anything (hope, hope, hope) will ever be as big a failure as that.
This law will still be around in a couple of years, that much I’m sure of. Whether or not it will hold the same weight as when first introduced is a different story.
If I’ve learned one thing through this thread it’s how little I truly understand of the feminist movement. Even though I grew up around a lot of amazingly independent and powerful women (many of whom contributed extensively to Women’s Lib in the 1960’s), I still never really got a full idea of what the entire movement was about. I mean personally, I agree that there should be no difference between the treatment of men and women but I take that to the utmost extreme. In college however, I always got the impression that there’s something like 1 million different interpretations of what Feminism truly stands for. Anyone care to enlighten a simple caveman?
Definitely not! I was using “Ampersand” for years before Y The Last Man came out. I just think the word is cool.
As for what different kinds of feminists believe, I sorta-kinda addressed that question in this old “Alas” post.
At least you have Bill Oreilly on your side. His disgusting Fox News program on the subject (march 22) shows that you have the anti-premarital sex crowd on your side.
Oreilly showed a perfectly normal international dating site with great photographs…but implied these women were whores. Then said that men would get fiance visas to “have their way sexually” with women for 90 days before sending them home.
Fox News is on your side. The FReepers are FreeRepublic.com, the most notoriously conservative site on the Internet, are TOTALLY behind the feminists on the IMBRA Law. I got personally banned from FR because of this subject.
On April 3rd the hearing for the permanent injunction will take place.
I wonder how many shots of whiskey Layli Muro had before (and after) the show. Wow, talk about taking one for the team that supports IMBRA. But really, does anyone on this entire blog think that Legal Momentum (NOW), Tahirih or any other supporter of IMBRA is focused on the TRO? In my opinion, they probably just snickered about it and went on with more important things.
Layli Miller Muro, a lawyer specializing in the new political Mcarthyism…creating an atmosphere of suspicion having a corps of people looking for these suspicious men who might potentially abuse foreign women. Looking for them in any schoolyard, any building, under every bed in America.
“Deception, distortion, exaggeration … all are forms of lying; and in any form, lying is to be deplored and condemned, especially when done by public persons in public forms.”
What I had feared is actually going to happen: a long drawn out battle in the courts. Two stubborn sides and that is the result. The restraining order will most likely be upheld in the Georgia court on April 3, if not made permanent. In addition, there is now a class action suit brewing at the national level. Granted, none of these actions will overturn IMBRA in the near term, if at all. What they do cause, however, is a hold up in the courts and that will enable all the brokers to temporarily operate as before. The folks at Tahirih will be in court in Georgia on Monday to defend their law and in a few months, some other place doing it all over again. With just a tweak of some of the law’s provisions, as discussed above, none of this friction and the upcoming pitched battle would be happening.
Ms. Miller- Muro assisting the Attorney General in the law suit spent most of Mondaymorning testifying with judge Cooper seemingly not satisfied with her questionable factual information.
Sometime tomorrow I will write an article entitled, “Federal judge angrily denounces International Marriage Regulation act as Political Mcarthyism”.
Ms. Miller-Muro will not be assisting the AG in the next case. The plaintiff’s attorney in the EC case should have been standing on his head objecting to that move. It is the government’s law, and they are the ones left holding the bag and responsible for defending it. Good luck.
I hope Ms. Miller-Muro shows up for the next case (which is coming soon), and isn’t offended when the Courtroom door hitting her butt on the way out. The government better start hiring some more attorneys, because they are going to be wasting a lot of time defending a law which is about to sink like the titanic
Who says that Ms. Miller-Muro will not be assisting the AG in the next case? What case is that? Where did you get your legal degree? Dave, that’s a judges decision, not yours, not a lawyers, but a judge. Unless you can show me something official (instead of your anti-feminist words), than it means nothing.
If the Federal Judge in the EC case declares the IMBRA unconstitutional and imposes a permanent injunction, then Ms. Miller-Muro (who helped to write this Law) will lose much of her credibility if she tries to assist in the next lawsuit against the IMBRA. Also, if EC wins its case, I will write a letter of complaint to the Congress that our taxpayer money is being wasted on Tahiri Justice Center, which used the taxpayor money help to write this Unconstitutional Law.
Ms. Miller -Muro / Attorney General cited a “Research Project” written by EQUALITY NOW in 1979 in the European Connections case against IMBRA : “The Willingness of mail order bride companies to provide services to violent men”.
The “Research project” consisted of “Equality Now” sending “mail order bride” companies an e mail purportedly from a man seeking to obtain introductions from foreign women, who in the e mail stated he had plead guilty in connection to assault on 2 former wives. Most of the respondents were willing to accept him as a customer including (ironically) some of the companies that IMBRA law carved out an exemption for.
The research methodology in the study has some serious flaws and the research ethics were morally abdominable including serious violations of ethics standard codes of research conduct for social science research projects by Federal standards. The participants of the study were not notified and the results of the study were not reviewed by various public segments required in any credable research study. Furthermore the study fabricated the results and misrepresented the data including only 25 companies (affected by the IMBRA law) in the study out of 200 companies that legacy INS estimated at the time of the survey in 1999.
Judge Cooper in Georgia is probably laughing at the Plaintiff’s cited “research study” more analygous to to a heresy withcraft trbunal.
There are some on this site who seem to enjoy making up things that are absolutely not true (and all verifiable in the public record). Ms. Miller-Muro was not in Atlanta for the TRO hearing and did not testify in the European Connections case. And, large dating services didn’t hire lobbyists to oppose IMBRA. Congress, on their own, recognized the difference between services that help men and women date on equal terms and services that commodotize women from developing countries for American men. Finally, no taxpayer money was used to advocate for the passage of IMBRA. It is all verifiable…look it up before you spew lies.
The proponents of IMBRA have used deception, distortion and exaggeration to pass IMBRA a law that severely impacts a mans privacy rights and also a violation of Constitutional rights. When the law was passed there was no statistics presented, no questions answered, no hearing. The IMBRA was deceptively attached to the back end of the Violence Against Womens Act (VAWA) up for extension and expected to easily pass. Most law makers did not realize the IMBRA portion was attached to VAWA.
The only way the proponents could get this law to pass was to exclude
the largest mega dating sites who have the money to challenge and easily win a law that is obviously a violation of Constitutional rights.
The proponents were so desperate to pass a law to regulate International datinng that Senator Maria Cantwell and John Miller presented false and misleading testimonty before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 14, 2004 claiming a Nexis between International marriage brokers and human trafficking of women into the United States. They presented this testimony even though they had prior knowledge that a previous legacy INS study that determined no correlation existed between IMB’s and foreign Traffficking of women into the USA.
In terms of statistics the proponents at one claimed 59% of International brokers had domestic violence an absolutely refutable statistic. The Layli Miller recently indicated “no way of definately knowing ” what violence rates occur in reference to International marriages involving mail order arrangements.
I could go on and on regarding specific examples of fabrication of statistics, misleading factual information , unethical research methods that the proponents have used to pass IMBRA 2005. It won’t matter because by this time next week IMBRA will be repealed in its entirety by Judge Cooper.
There is an old saying that is applicable here. You can fool all the people some of the time or some of the people all the time but IMBRA proponents can’t fool all the people all the time and jJudge Cooper is not fooled easily. … the judge will likely repeal IMBRA.
Confused, I see that you posted the same text on the Dating Rights website. In case you have not seen the responses, here they are. You really should not post there as it fuels more defiance which leads to more financial contributions from anti-IMBRists. These funds are being used to mount a class action suit that will lead to more gender friction in the United States.
_______________________________________
Perhaps. Nothing you can do about it.
Just like you can’t do anything about everyone at the Tahirih Justice Center, LifetimeTV, and Legal Momentum (former NOW Legal Defense Fund) who seem to satiate themselves by formulating and promoting propaganda that masks their true sociopathic agenda.
Rather than search all over the net, perhaps you could provide some links to these public records as that would be useful.
Well, whether Muro was or was not there at least makes for some interesting trivia. So tell me, why do think a federal judge determined that a TRO was warranted?
Large dating sites would have been foolish to oppose IMBRA – Do you know why?
If it so clear, as you claim, then why didn’t Congress just ban international dating sites? After all, that would have immediately ended this route to foreign women along with the websites that Muro and other bitter scorned feminists find so offensive.
I have a lot of faith in Congress, about as much as I have in the feminists that spew the same old garbage over and over and over again.. Those ladies from developing countries that you speak of may never be on the same “economic terms” as men in the USA, but this does not mean they are the helpless idiots you make them out to be. These women do not care about what you think because they see through your agenda.
Here is an idea, go to the Philippines and save all of these ladies from becoming slaves to American men, I am sure they will roll out the welcome wagon for you… maybe you can “educate” them on how to hate American men.
That’s good. No sense in creating millions of really pissed off taxpayers.
We take liberty in spewing lies…and do enjoy that it annoys you. Care to guess from what groups we learned this technique?
Broham, at the point when you start calling well-respected feminist groups “sociopaths,” it’s clear that you’re not willing to engage in civil discussion.
You’ve been banned. Please don’t post on this blog anymore.
Pardon me. I have not called anyone anything. If you read the introduction to my post, you will then know that the text that follows is from another website. My point is to stop the agitation of a very formidable group by suggesting that folks who post here do not post there.
Okay. Reading back through this thread, you’re right; you’re one of the very, very few people on your side of this argument who seems able to make a case without resorting to either overt misogyny or insults (apart from condescending “no one will have the courage to respond to this point” remarks). So sorry I misread your post, and I’ve unbanned you.
However, in general, I don’t like comment-writers to post long quotes from other sites with little original content – especially if the content is insulting to feminists. Next time, it would be better if you could just post a link saying “in case you didn’t see it, people have responded to you here.” Or, for that matter, you could refrain from bringing up the matter here altogether.
Confused, for the same reason, I’d prefer you not use my site to repost stuff you’ve written elsewhere. Linking to it suffices.
I just read an article about international dating in an online dating magazine and it states that there has been an exponential growth of American men going overseas and finding foreign brides. What is known is that many are rich and well educated American men, who are highly successful in their careers – so they are far from being the “losers” that the media portrays them to be. The article also quotes that if the present trend continues, in 20 years, about 25 percent of American men will be married to foreign ladies. Now, an attempt was made to help prevent this by the government passing the International Marriage Brokers Regulatiuons Act 2005 (IMBRA), but a Federal Judge has imposed an injunction against it, stating that it violates American men’s basic rights to seek brides overseas. So American men continues to go to Russia, Ukraine, Columbia, Phillipines, Thailand, Brazil, China, etc. in droves to find their brides. Soon, the international marriages will become main stream in our society, unless something (such as IMBRA) puts a break to it. What are everyone’s thoughts on this?
I have so many thoughts about this law that it is hard for me to know where to begin. I mostly been a reader and not a poster, but today I decided to put down a few of my thoughts.
Thought 1 – has the trend changed? At one time I couldn’t find anything against IMBRA, but now I seem to find it everywhere. This either means people who neverhad anything to say about the feminist movement before have been woken up or people are changing their minds. At face value I was all for IMBRA until I read it. Goodness, it is so anti-male, anti-marriage to foreign ladys and anti-smaller dating sites v.s. larger exempted sites, that one can’t help but to root for IMBRA to go away.
I challenge all those who are pro-imbra and comment on any section of the law that talks about international dating sites and back ground requirements. I won’t list my answers here to keep the post from getting too long, but would gladly answer each one who thinks this law and its articles are good. But first read it and list the article from the law you are for.
Thought 2 – Albert’s post above my post caught my eye. One of the major components of Americans marrying foreign ladys is also U.S. military. By far they are not losers. I have a friend in the U.S. Army who met a Philippine lady during his tour. He left but could not get her off his mind. Bottom line, it was the whole package that attracted him to her. It is one of those things he has a hard time describing, but the gleam in his eye tells the whole story.
Thought 3 – Glad that Ampersand reinstated Broham. The initial ban made me say “what” and my thought was, this site is pro feminist and any one who opposes it is going to be banned. Not sure the politics of the site, to be honest, but in my view it is a great neutral site to post all view. Thanks for having it.
Bob
(You don’t need to post this on the blog)
Ampersand, you said that I should not post things here that I have posted elsewhere, but this is the only place I have posted it. When you said that, I googled my posting and it appears to have also been posted on something called “online dating rights.com”, but I did not put it there. I find it creepy that someone cut a posted my comments on another blog and made it appear as though it was me. It was not. (I’ve seen that site before and the level of dialoge is very immature…I don’t even look at it anymore.)
Several postings seem to misunderstand what IMBRA does. It doesn’t prevent anyone from doing anything. Men are free to meet and marry women abroad in IMBRA. It only requires the sharing of information about a prospective American spouse (man or woman) with their prospective foreign spouse (man or woman). The frantic response to IMBRA by people who oppose it would only make sense if someone had an extensive criminal record and feared a woman knowing about it. Even under IMBRA, a convicted criminal is still free to meet and marry whom he chooses…she would just know about his past. I wouldn’t think that getting to know someone should be that much of a threat. In fact, I think that it would work to foster more long-lasting relationships. I’m all for international relationships! The world is getting smaller every day.
The post by confused I had to comment on and maybe even offer another example, if I may. The danger to the male disclosing personal information before he gets to know the lady is what most object to. Would you care to disclose any personal iformation to a stranger without getting to know him first? The government is asking men to do that?
Obviously when you first meet someone, no matter if on the net or at a local club, it is mostly an attraction you feel towards that person. This draws you in to get to know the person and in turn let them get to know you. If the relationship develops, you both become more open with your personal life. Rarely (unless you are a strange bird), do you at the initial stage of a relationship disclose how many times you have been married, any possible violations in your life that may of happen years ago, etc.
The danger is disclosing such information before you get a chance to know the person, may be used by that person for the wrong reasons. Especially since that information can be so easily scattered by the net (heck, you were upset when someone took something you wrote and you say posted elsewhere).
Ok, maybe my point will fall on death ears, but there is a danger there no matter if you think so or not. Just put yourself in those shoes for a moment.
The European Connections Case will likely be resolved this week. At the heart of the matter is the ability of the defendants to conclusively prove that IMBRA serves as a reasonable and rational approach to address a “growing governmental concern” regarding alledged increase of domestic violence associated with Int. marriage brokers. On page 17-18 in the defendants memorandum (March 31, 2006) the defendants cite an increase in K-1 and K -2Visas being issued along with” documented statistical evidence of high rates of abuse in marrriages resulting from these International marriage brokers”.
Both the proponents of IMBRA and the defendants have been unable to demonstrate any accurate comparison of violence rates for International marriages (through IMB’s) compared to the overall violence rate for US marriages. The proponents and defendants alike have cited an array of confusing and misleading statistical information. For example Layli Miller Muro recently stated on the O’reilly factor she had”no definitive way of knowing” what percentage of the “mail order bride” marriages were involved in abusive situations. The Miller-Muro cited a study stating that “more than 50% of legal Immigrant Service providers were seeing women who were being abused by men they met through Int. marriage brokers”. (This study cited is confusing and destroys any credible accuracy in terms of domestic violence).
To confuse matters even more the defendants memorandum ( dated March 31, 2006) cited the preamble of IMBRA (2003) claiming “49.3 percent of foreign immigrants reported physical abuse by an intimate partner. This is clearly a mistake by the defendant with a misrepresentation of facts. The study cited involved hispanic women in the DC area none of who had met their husbands through a mariage broker.
The defendants and proponents of IMBRA have failed to demonstrate any reliable evidence (statistical or factual) demonstrating a higher rate of violence for International marriages (through IMB’s) versus all marriages in the United States and thus Judge Cooper will likely rule in favor of the Plaintiff.
Furthermore when
IMBRA was passed it did not pass “Constitutional muster” since there was no hearing or statistics presented. Therefore defendants are on the defensive and must prove the law is warranted which they haven’t done.
I understand why someone might be put off by having to share criminal background information with a prospective spouse, but it seems a small price to pay for protecting women from really bad guys – and it is clear from the murders reported that there are at least some bad guys. Heck, you have to share criminal background information to get a job…to get an apartment. Finding your true love should be at least as important as an event as finding a job or apartment. If you truly value the intelligence of an immigrant woman, sharing with her information so that she can make an informed choice, up front, is only respectful.
confused Writes:
Confused, you are correct. And certainly, we can agree that, just like you, her intelligence will enable her to ask for information that SHE considers important while getting to know more about a man she is interested in. Of course, just like you, one cannot think of every possible thing to ask. Fortunately, when applying for a visa while still in her country, she will be made aware of any and all “bad guy” things. Therefore, out of respect for her, she would be receiving, “up front,” all the information she needs to make an informed decision. If you prefer that the woman’s intelligence be insulted by providing information before saying “hello” in a love letter, PLEASE TELL ME WHY.
“Confused” has stated, “I understand why someone might be put off by having to share criminal background information with a prospective spouse, but it seems a small price to pay for protecting women from really bad guys ”
The IMBRA requires extensive information for a variety of crimes from DUI to murder with no distinction between conviction (gulty or not guilty) . There appears to be no period of forgiveness for even simple violations of the law . Lets say you were arrested for DUI 35 years ago and were found not guilty.. you still must declare the crime even though you were not gulty. IMBRA is “to “Broad based” here implicating anyone accused of a petty crime 35 years ago.
Confused has stated. “heck you have to share criminal information to get a job”. The truth of the matter is the background clearance (check) required for IMBRA is more comprehensive then getting a Top secret clearance for National Security positions.
IMBRA is too “broad based” unduly infringing upon mens privacy rights. One could argue submission of criminal information is a petty thing… but when your fiancee Visa gets put on “adminstrative review” by USCIS for a year because of a petty crime (including non guilty convictions) 35 years ago it IMBRA unduly burdersome.
Dan, I am afraid you need a bit of a legal education. As a matter of law, the government and Tahirih don’t have to prove a thing to have imbra upheld. The law is STRONGLY PRESUMED CONSTITUTIONAL and it is european connections and (sex) tours that has to prove that imbra is totally irrational, that’s just the law
Regarding your OPINION that the “law is strongly presumed constitutional”. Apparently the judge isn’t presuming IMBRA is constitutional by placing a TRO preventing the law from being implemented. In fact Judge Cooper had stated, “The Court found the Plaintiff has a “substantial liklihood of success on the merits”.
Sun,
Regarding your OPINION that the “law is strongly presumed constitutional”. Apparently the judge isn’t presuming IMBRA is constitutional by placing a TRO preventing the law from being implemented. In fact Judge Cooper had stated, “The Court found the Plaintiff has a “substantial liklihood of success on the merits” …reading between the lines to mean” The defendants (Tahirih and government) must prove ” IMBRA is rational”. (That explains why the defendants memorandum was 24 pages long).
I just heard that Tahirih filed a 100 page briefing document a few days ago. Thats definately a mistake with the appearance that
Tahirih is desperately trying to defend IMBRA a law that obviuosly
is legally flawed and unconstitutional. The only reason IMBRA passed in the first place was because supporters of IMBRA deceptively attached it to the back end of the Violence Against Women Act whichwas up for re extension. Most of the legislators didn’t realize IMBRA had been attached to the VAWA. Previous to its passage in December 2005 IMBRA failed to gather much support since it was viewed as a serious violations of mens privacy and Constitutional rights.
It looks like another lawsuit besides EC is now coming the government way. ODR just posted this:
The plaintiffs we have come to know, have filed both the complaint and TRO today in Ohio Court. The TRO is expected to be ruled on this Friday but not certain yet. Aagin, the plaintiffs who filed want to thank you for all your efforts
So, the IMBRA war is well underway. I wonder, has there ever been a feminist vs male rights case taken to the federal level or is IMBRA breaking new ground? And to add to all this is the irony that the battle is over the rights of men to freely communicate with non-feminist women. Its quite a plot and may actually make a good TV mini-series.
ON APRIL 26, 2006, SUIT WAS FILED IN THE U.S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO (DAYTON DIVISION) CAPTIONED: “AMERICAN ONLINE DATING ASSN. & STRICKLER V. GONZALEZ”, CASE NO. 3:06cv123, CHALLENGING IMBRA. THE CASE IS ASSIGNED TO JUDGE THOMAS M. ROSE, AND IS TENTATIVELY SET FOR HEARING ON THE TRO MOTION FOR MONDAY, MAY 01, 2006
The Ohio Lawsuit that was just launched against IMBRA utilizes further arguments that the EC case did not use…which will help stop the feminists from appealing an EC decision with success.
The new AODA Lawsuit in Ohio, launched with the critical support of two American women lawyers, argues:
1) The Right to Association (2nd Amendment) and
2) The Right to Privacy (which is not in the Constitution but has tons of precedent)
The new lawsuit even mentions Roe vs Wade as a privacy precedent…among many others.
Also…a case where mentally retarded people were discriminated against because they were “politically unpopular” in a community that did not want a home for them built…was used as an example of IMB customers being persecuted only because they are politically unpopular.
The only thing these lawyers are leaving out, which the EC lawyers also left out, is that half of all foreign women on IMB sites do not have email and, therefore, could not “approve” of criminal background forms and then 300,000 women would have to be deleted from the Internet ASAP if IMBRA ever came into effect (which theoretically could be tomorrow if the Ohio judge doesn’t grant the additional TRO).
Also, neither lawsuit states the obvious: that IMBRA allows men to lie on the background forms…which means that this part of the law would be useless and harmless if it weren’t for the above fact that so many women don’t have email to allow them to quickly approve of the useless forms, 100% of which would state that the male had no criminal background.
The new lawsuit does point out, however, that an IMB customer named Mark Strickland states that foreign women tend to ignore the background forms, even though he has no damaging information on them, and this he believes is a major impediment to free speech.
This plaintiff is correct on this: a submitted form that has no bad information on it…will be ignored because the women will also see no important information such as age, height, job, photo. They won’t understand why all this *relevant* info was not on the form.
So IMBRA will do what it was secretly designed to do: create a barrier between American men and foreign women…a barrier that seems small…but which can make all the difference in the world.
Remember what I said above: No intelligent man with a criminal background would ever tell the truth on an IMBRA form, making the forms useless.
The original purpose of IMBRA was to prevent violence against women who met their husbands throught an International Marriage Broker/Agency (IMB). But is the violence rate higher in these “mail order bridge” arrangements?
According to Congress at least * 8,000-12,000 foreign women entered the United States each year as a “Mail order bride”. Over a ten year period this means approximately 100,000 women have entered the USA as a result of “mail order bride” arrangements. Only three of those women have been killed by their husband in 10 years. Deplorable nonetheless but in the same 10 year period 14,000 American women citizens have been killed by their husbands or intimate partner.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to calculate the “Intimate Partner Murder Rate” for women who met their husbands through an International marriage agency. Simply divide 3 by 100,000=.003%
The “Intimate partner violence rate” for all marriages throughout the US can be found by dividing 14,000 by 80,000,000 women (married/ living together)=.0175%
Based upon these calculations the murder for these International marriages (Mail order bride arrangements) enjoy a far lower rate of murder compared to all US marriages. This would be expected since the average age of IMB clients is approximately 44 years. Simply because of their age these men are well educated, earn higher salaries than average, have well established careers, and thus they are generally responsible.
Please do not make mistake about REAL intention of the IMBRA. It is goal to take out of business smaller web site that are not exempt. The law is going directly after web site owneres, threatening with $20,000 fine and 5 yeas in jail for selling $10 – $20 address.
I myself purchased a share of such Web site after finding my future wife on it and been running it for a year. Trust me, the law was crafted in such way that was ABSOLUTELY ECONOMICALLY not feasable to comply. Most of the Ladies on the Web Site only have cell phones and they are all prepaid, meaning that calling party pays and trust me, it is much higher rate than in US. We will have to spend more money on just phone calls than we will make from the sale. And by the way, MAIL does not exist here, period.
So for several months we were trying to find the economically viable way to comply. If the law would require us to secure ladies consent during Personal introduction, it would work. But NO way it will EVER work for just saying Hello stage.
By the way, we sometimes are dealing with some male as..les who uses our web site to call and harrass the ladies on the site. We tell ALL our female clients to contact us IMMIDIATELY in that case and we 1. banned the guy from the site 2. trying to contact him personally and talk some reason into the guy. 3. contact the authorities. You won’t believe how many times we have forwared the requests for under-aged girls to the FBI and INTERPOL.
Ok, now the law will take us out of Ligitimate business. But trust me, were is a demand there is always going to be a supply, but future suppliers will not as clean as we are. It is as siple as Tax : make everybody pay 15 – 25% of their income in taxes and you have a law-abiding citizens, make it 55% or more and you have a nation of tax cheats.
there are abuses on both sides of the fence on this international marriage broker idea. i was a lonely, heartbroken divorcee who met a filipina through a dating service. she told me everything i wanted to hear. i visited the phils to prove i met her; a year later, after uscis forms were approved; i went to the phils to pick her up and bring her to the usa under the fiance visa program.
we went to indiana where her cousin’s fiance lived just as soon as her cousin arrived in the usa on a tuesday. wednesday afternoon we were married; i left indiana early friday morning to return to new england to settle some affairs; with plans to return to indiana in about 2 weeks. the following monday, i called the cousin’s home all day; no answer; i called all day tuesday about every hour or so.
AS A SIDE NOTE, MY NEW BRIDE AND I NEVER SLEPT TOGETHER; as she always was finding excuses, so the marriage NEVER was even consummated.
approx 7 pm when i called, the cousin’s fiancee answered the telephone and told me my new bride and her cousin had run away together. this happened in march of 2006.
apparently, all these 2 filipinas, MY NEW WIFE, and her cousin wanted to do was to get to the usa asap, get someone to marry them so they could stay in the usa for beyond the 90 days allowed by a fiance visa, and then disappear. green card city for sure.
to make a long story short, i filed for divorce, but as most people know, you need both parties present for the courtroom. finally, on may 22d, 2007, over a year’s time trying every means and ways to locate ‘my wife’ unsuccessfully, i have finally been able to at least get into the court system.
now, i live in the archaic state of rhode island which has a ruling that people have to wait a minimum of 3 months BEFORE a marriage can be finalized. also, since the term “anulment” seems to be an unheard of thing around here; which is what i really wanted since the marriage was NOT consummated; so i had to go through a regular divorce proceeding.
therefore, to add insult to injury, it will be at least a year and a half that my life has been on hold because of just one little mistake, of believing that this filipina loved me and wanted to make a life of happiness together; however, as i soon found out; all she loved was the idea of a green card.
for anyone out there interested in these things; CAVEAT for sure; almost 3 years in time which i can NEVER recover; in addition to the approx $20,000 in expenses, including the legal fees. i can earn the money back as long as my health stands up; but i cannot ever recover the 3 years of time which have gone forever.
for all lovers out there; again, there is abuse on both sides of the case; as for me; although i am very good at most things, as i am sure most people are; however; NONE OF US ARE MINDREADERS; so if someone tells me they love me; or you or anyone else; how do you know ?????? life is a gamble; you just hope you choose right more than you choose wrong.
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I am a Filipino and I would very much like to see web sites like filipinawives[dot]com banned. I really hate the negative stereotype of Filipino “mail-order brides”. When you use the words “Filipina” and “bride” in a search engine, how many “mail-order bride” web sites are listed?
Filipinas are intelligent and well educated, but western women are more progressive with women’s rights. It would be good if western women could come to the Philippines and contribute to the Filipino feminists. Often people here are unaware of the unusually high level of anti-feminist feelings amongst the western men that seek Filipina wives. They are often unaware of the reasons why such men have rejected western women (or were rejected by western women). Such reasons commonly include anti-feminist feelings.
Filipinas are not house slaves, our country is more progressive and I hope soon that Filipino “mail-order brides” will never be spoken of again.