Burning Atlanta

We know this goes on we just don't know how much of a problem it is. Atlanta

ATLANTA - When a woman recently asked for a copy of her marriage license, the court clerk in suburban Atlanta's Gwinnett County had to break some unpleasant news: Her husband was listed as the groom in eight marriages in the county.

Federal immigration authorities are investigating whether the three defendants were part of a sham-marriage ring aimed at helping immigrants from Africa obtain their green cards, or permanent U.S. residency.

By marrying an American citizen, foreigners can win the right to stay and work in this country.

Within two years of the wedding, husband and wife are called in to be interviewed separately by an immigration officer who establishes whether the marriage is bona fide and, if so, grants a green card. The interviewer can ask anything: how they met, which side of the bed a spouse sleeps on, the color of his or her toothbrush.

While the process is long and expensive at about $5,000, it is, in many cases, easier than getting a green card through an employer. Nearly 260,000 spouses of U.S. citizens became permanent residents in 2005, up from fewer than 185,000 in 2003, according to the government.

Two especially large rings were broken up over the summer in Utah's Salt Lake County and New York City. In New York, a former immigration officer and his sister are accused of making more than $1 million over four years by providing hundreds of fake marriage documents and paying U.S. citizens to enter into sham marriages with foreigners.

In Utah, 24 people — most of them naturalized U.S. citizens from Vietnam — were charged with paying at least 46 U.S. citizens as much as $10,000 each to travel to Vietnam to marry Vietnamese people. The foreigners were charged $30,000 each.