Many cases of eastern women involved in fake marriages have recently been discovered in Ireland. The men, whose goal is to get the EU citizenship thanks to these sham marriages, come mainly from Pakistan and many African countries, as the Sunday Independent reported.

Guard of Peace of Ireland has been contacted by Police of Latvia, after having received many reports from young Latvian women who went to Ireland to celebrate fake marriages in exchange for money and then became victims in episodes of violence.

After receiving these reports, the National Immigration Bureau started tracking cases when women from Eastern Europe are brought to Ireland to celebrate convenience marriages advising  police to intervene in cases where trafficking or sexual, or physical violence was observed and also in case of fake documents. but authorities cannot prosecute people over the sham marriages alone because women from Baltic States are EU residents and they can stay in Ireland.

This illegal activity has been running for years, but it was discovered only recently, following a series of successful prosecutions by police at the UK border. Many sham marriages have been uncovered and broke up.

In the past year, courts in Britain have handed down sentences of up to four years for “assisting unlawful immigration“,  and Ireland’s equivalent law was successfully challenged in the European Court of Justice in 2008 in a case brought by eight immigrants, mostly African, who married European women while in Ireland, independent.ie reported.

The European Court found that Irish law in relation to using marriage to assist illegal immigration was contrary to the EU’s “freedom of movement” laws.
After the European Court ruling, the number of apparent fake marriages between illegal immigrants and girls from Baltic States increased from 544 cases in 2008 to 1,100 cases last year.

Ireland police has discovered that the girls brought from Latvia mostly come to Registrar’s with the groom and leave the country, after filling in all the required forms.
If the couple goes to the Circuit Family Court or High Court, the three months period required before the submitting of all the forms can be avoided.

LATA reported that the price to be paid for an intended immigrant to marry an EU wife and get the EU citizenship is 10,000 euros. Irish police confirmed that many of the girls who decided to accept the money and get married to these men are usually destitute.
But usually they receive 2000 euros in cash plus accommodation and police believes that 10,000 euros have never been paid.

Irish Justice minister Dermot Ahern explained how the 2009 statistics on spouses show that, out of the 384 Pakistani applications, 110 were based on marriages to Latvian EU citizens, 50 were marriages to Polish citizens, and 47 marriages were to Estonians.

He also said that the Pakistani spouses are usually students or former students with no immigration permission, while Nigerians are likely to be failed asylum seekers. Nigerians made up the next biggest group, with 115 applications for EU or Irish citizenship based on marriage to EU citizens. Immigration authorities are now checking all applications by foreigners to marry EU citizens in Ireland. In each separate case they investigate the nature of the immigrant’s status, and if the person is illegally in the country he will be pursued, authorities confirmed.

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