Immigration Issues
...In other words, a wife that stays in the kitchen and is subservient to the male. Hence, male-order brides become the answer. In her article she states that INS reported to Congress in 1999 that it estimates 4,000-5000 US citizens or resident men have married by virtue of the mail order bride business. Kelly, claimed that such agencies as Cherry Blossoms and Asian Flowers charge $6,000-$10,000 to men who wish to receive catalogs of potential brides. I investigated this by visiting the web-page of Cherry Blossom on the Internet. The cost of subscription to the service varies. For example for a one month member ship is $19.95, and a one-year subscription is $99.95. These figures are far from the $6,000-$10,000 charge Kelly stated in her article. Apparently there has been little scholarly interest in the mail order bride industry. But every year, 4,000 to 6,000 marriages can be associated with this industry. Typically, the bride/fiancée seeks a “K” visa which all the person to be admitted to the United States on a temporary ninety-day visa. The petitioning bride/fiancée and the citizen marry within this time period and pursue permanent residency. Kelly only mentions two incidents of abuses in the mail-order bride industry. In 1995, a 25 year-old Filipino woman who was seven-months pregnant was killed at a courthouse by the man she married through the mail-order bride industry. The second incident occurred when the mail-order bride’s former boyfriend and father of her child murdered her citizen spouse. Kelly’s concern is the risk of abuse and abuses that do occur within the male-order bride industry, but is not reported. Kelly offers a few solutions to this problem. Her first suggestion is to eliminate the practice of mail-order brides all together. Yet, she very quickly dismis...