Client Granted Asylum After Overcoming Marriage Fraud and One-Year Issues

Our client was placed in deportation proceedings after her adjustment of status application was denied by USCIS, based on accusations of marriage fraud. During the marriage, she became pregnant by another man who was not her husband. USCIS based their fraud finding on this fact and a number of other false allegations related to whether the couple lived together and who was the father on the child’s birth certificate.

Once in removal proceedings, the client had a strong case for asylum, however, the ICE attorney argued that she was not eligible for asylum because more than one year had passed before she applied for asylum (asylum applicants are generally required to apply within one year of arrival in the U.S.) We argued that she qualified for an exception to the one-year rule because she filed in a timely manor after her adjustment of status application was denied. However, the government argued that she did not warrant this exception because of the marriage fraud accusations.

Consequently, we had to convince the judge that she had not committed marriage fraud to qualify for asylum. We were able to successful do this by submitting a great deal of evidence that showed that while the marriage failed and the client did have a child from another man, fraud was never committed.

Upon finding no marriage fraud, the judge quickly approved her case for asylum based on the overwhelming evidence we submitted which showed she faced a high risk of harm based both on her ethnicity and her political beliefs if she returned to her home country. She is now a permanent resident of the United States.