“Before, I didn’t see many at all,” Wolfenson said, referring to security delays. In her 30 years of practicing immigration law, Wolfenson states the current situation is “the worst it’s ever been." According to a Department of Justice audit released this June, the delays are linked to the FBI’s name check system.
Coincidentally, Wolfenson believes the crackdown on marriage fraud has disproportionately targeted Muslim men (who are well represented on the FBI list). Since 2005, twelve of Wolfenson’s marriage cases have run into the security wall, all Muslim males from Pakistan, Turkey or Iran. She says Muslim women do not face similar obstacles. Geopolitics might play a role in the delay. Similar delays were felt for Iranian applicants shortly after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. “They were taking those cases and putting them on the bottom of the application pile,” Wolfenson said.
Recent disclosures indicate government agencies are subjecting individuals of Muslim origin to particular scrutiny. A 2006 ICE memo mentioned a proposed list of 35 countries stretching from Morocco to Kazakhstan, most with predominantly Muslim populations, as nations of “special interest.” Both USCIS and ICE claim they do not single out Muslims for investigation, however.
The security delays are straining relationships. One of Wolfenson’s clients, an Iranian man whose application has been in limbo since 2001, recently separated from his American wife because of uncertainty about his citizenship possibilities.
Another of her clients, Ulster County resident Frances Sadiq, has been married to Mohammed Sadiq since March 2001. They have been interviewed by USCIS adjudicators in 2002 and 2005, yet Mohammed’s adjustment of status application is still pending due to security checks, the attorney said. Mohammed is Pakistani.
“The whole situation is nerve wracking,” said Mrs. Sadiq, who is on disability and does not work. “It’s cost us a lot of money.” To make ends meet and pay their legal bills, Mohammed drives a taxi in addition to jobs at a grocery store and a gas station.
Frances believes her husband’s ethnicity is behind the delays. “I believe it’s racial profiling,” she said. “There are terrorists in the world, yes – but there are terrorists of all nationalities.”
To Rev. Schaper, the fact that well-intentioned people are subject to such "government surveillance" around the intimate matter of wedlock flies in the face of American values. She even cites the musicals Americans love best, like "West Side Story" and "Fiddler on the Roof" – or the current Broadway rave revival, "South Pacific" – as proof. "Love between people from different worlds, and all the tension that brings – do we still believe in that? We're denying the basic American beliefs by which we live."
This article was written as part of an immigration reporting fellowship granted by the Center on Media, Crime & Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the New York Community Media Alliance.
