Sens. Harding, Berthel, Sampson: Marriage Fraud Raises “serious questions about our broken immigration system.”
November 13, 2024Central CT town sees wave of ‘assembly line’ marriages as GOP questions potential immigration abuses
Hartford Courant
As Connecticut Republican leaders demand answers about a possible sham marriage operation taking place at New Haven’s city hall, officials in Southington said they’ve encountered something similar but on a smaller scale.
A small group of the same people has arrived at Southington’s town hall every so often accompanying several different couples, stood by as they picked up marriage licenses and then videotaped a justice of the peace marrying each one, Town Manager Alex Ricciardone said Tuesday.
“We had several a day, sometimes every day, all lining up outside. As the officiant marries one, somebody takes the ring off of the man and passes it to the next couple. There was one guy telling each person what to do, almost like an assembly line,” Ricciardone said.
The couples were from other states, but neither Ricciardone nor Town Clerk Kathy Larkin would confirm that in each case one spouse was an American citizen and the other a citizen of another nation, most often India.
That has been the pattern in New Haven according to a recent investigation by the New Haven Independent, which found a massive surge in out-of-state residents showing up in the Elm City to get married by justices of the peace at city hall.
Immigration experts said the system of a justice of the peace arranging marriages for several non-citizens at a time, typically with a quick and no-frills civil service at city hall, raised concerns of scam marriages intended only to help the non-resident spouse get status to remain in the United States.
City clerks in East Hartford, West Hartford, New Britain, Cromwell and Farmington all said Tuesday that they’ve seen no similar pattern. Larkin confirmed that Southington has been troubled with something similar, but referred questions to Ricciardone.
“The town was struggling with this for a few years now. It’s been very frustrating to town staff, sometimes the handlers who bring these couples just stand around town hall, they smoke marijuana. We’ve called the police a few times,” he said. “We had an increase of triple or quadruple the usual number (of marriage license applications).”
The wave was three to four times as many marriage licenses as Southington would normally process, and tied up staff.
One woman was married at town hall one day, and showed up the following day to try to marry someone else, Ricciardone said. Town staff declined her second application.
Ricciardone contacted federal authorities about the suspicious pattern and so far has heard nothing back, so Southington overhauled its marriage license application procedures.
Couples can no longer show up and almost instantly get a license before the marriage ceremony.
“Effective Oct. 1, 2024, marriage licenses will be issued by appointment only,” the town’s website notes.
“As it stands now, we’ve had to implement a one-day waiting period. We were inundated with so many people before,” said Ricciardone, who said the new system appears to have significantly reduced the problem.
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said his city has also taken action.
“We implemented a two-day waiting period from when a couple is married to when they receive the certificate,” he said. “Now we’re implementing a two-day wait from when they apply to when they get the license. So it’s four days.”
Elicker emphasized those conditions are on couples who don’t reside in New Haven. The volume of out-of-state couples getting married in the city has interfered with quick service for local residents, according to the city.
“We’re also limiting the number of appointments for non-New Haven residents, and looking into a no solicitation policy in city hall,” he said, noting the city has found justices of the peace loitering in the lobby and approaching people who seek marriage license applications.
“This is a problem in other municipalities as well. We understand Bridgeport and Trumbull and East Haven have had issues,” he said.
Elicker said part of the trouble is that state law requires towns to process marriage license applications, adding “our staff are not police officers.”
Late last week, three Republicans — Sen. Rob Sampson, Sen. Eric Berthel and Sen. Minority Leader Stephen Harding — issued a statement saying the New Haven Independent’s story “raises a host of troubling red flags. This story raises serious questions about our broken immigration system and its impact on Connecticut taxpayers.”
Messages on Tuesday to Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration and Senate Democratic leaders were not returned.
