Background: Some, including former Fox News columnist Wendy McElroy, have criticized the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 (IMBRA) for being anti-male.
According to McElroy, “the IMBRA requires American men who wish to correspond with foreign women through private for-profit matchmaking agencies to first provide those businesses with their police records and other personal information to be turned over to the women. Corresponding with a foreigner is legal. Marrying a foreigner is legal….Now American men who wish to pursue a legal activity must release their government files to a foreign business and foreign individuals.”
A group has formed to protest the anti-male IMBRA–Online Dating Rights (ODR). The ODR criticizes the IMBRA, and notes “this is the first time in US history criminal background checks have been required for two people to communicate.” To learn more, click here.
Men’s rights columnist Carey Roberts has an interesting new column on the IMBRA–IMBRA: Anatomy of a Feminist Hoax (MensNewsDaily.com, 9/26/07). Roberts writes:
“[IMBRA opponent] Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington…brandished the notion of mail-order brides, casting foreign women as victims of predatory males. Then she dubbed international dating services as marriage brokers, conjuring up the image of a rogue operation trading lives for dollars.
“On July 13, 2004 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee scheduled a hearing to air the issue. No dating services or happily-betrothed foreign women were invited to testify — their comments would not likely fit the script.
“During her testimony, Cantwell made the startling claim that match-making services serve as a nefarious front for international human trafficking. She concluded, there is a growing epidemic of domestic abuse among couples who meet via international marriage brokers. As proof of that epidemic, she highlighted the cases of three abused women.
“Cantwells depiction of comely maidens being seduced into prostitution rings was more than Sen. Sam Brownback could resist, and before long he signed on as a leading co-sponsor of the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act. With liberals and conservatives now on board, IMBRAs political star was rising.
“But it turns out that Senator Cantwells supposition that dating services drag women into a life of sex slavery and indentured servitude was nothing more than a feminist tall-tale.
“There was the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service report that revealed, less than 1 percent of the abuse cases now being brought to the attention of the INS can be attributed to the mail-order bride industry.
“A second analysis soberly concluded that foreign brides are dramatically less likely to be involved in domestic violence as calculated by the Intimate Partner Murder Rate.
“And earlier this week the Washington Post reported that early estimates of up to 100,000 human trafficking victims being secreted into the United States each year were grossly exaggerated. Despite more than $150 million of taxpayer dollars diverted to a massive search and rescue effort, it turns out the actual number of trafficking victims is closer to 200 annually.”
Read Roberts’ full column here.
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college activist said,
September 29, 2007 at 3:07 pm
mruffolo said,
Hint: check the socially “conservative” option on the search page.
September 29, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Roger F. Gay said,
September 30, 2007 at 9:45 am
mruffolo said,
http://christianparty.net/divorceworld.htm
Without due process, but as a matter of routine, the American government’s family court awards women with children, eighteen years of income, and property. In case the man is angered by the new arrangement. There is the threat of jail for him by VAWA’s Order of Protection.
I met a thirty-something American man yesterday who shared with me that his Ecuadorian wife divorced him after seven years. He said that she read American magazines and watched television, and that she hung out with divorced friends at work, then became “Americanized.” She told him that she divorced him to focus on her “career.”
He added that he filled for bankruptcy after the divorce because of her credit card debt awarded to him by the court.
I shared with him what we share with each other on this site. After the discussion he thanked me for speaking with him.
September 30, 2007 at 1:05 pm
fourthwire said,
While divorce rates for American men/foreign wives ARE lower than the divorce rates for two Americans married, marrying a woman born and raised in a culture relatively untainted by feminism still remains a risk for men - albeit a relatively lower one.
To be sure, it’s also EASIER to meet American women than it is to meet foreign women, but that’s not particularly smarter either.
The lowest-risk lifestyle alternative for men remains to not marry, or cohabit, or procreate at all…… but for those men who are hell-bent on placing themselves unnecessarily at risk, the smartest move is to meet foreign-born women in their own nations.
American feminazis continuously attempt to export their ideology abroad, using the auspices of the U.N. and related agencies, for example.
And for those American men intending to marry a foreign national, during the interview process done through the American consulate, the wife-to-be is handed a packet of feminazi propaganda about “domestic abuse”, written in the appropriate local languages….. with contact phone numbers.
Thank the bitches behind VAWA and IMBRA for that little gift to American men.
Isn’t it great that the American government already portrays American men as potential “abusers”, even before they grant permission for the bride-to-be to reside in the U.S.?
September 30, 2007 at 4:03 pm
mruffolo said,
America is too hostile toward a father/husband.
September 30, 2007 at 5:53 pm
christianj said,
This will save you a lot of misery if you are still determined to put yourself in the firing line..
September 30, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Robert Stevens said,
You see I have been victimized not once , but twice by the rebellious and selfish white women. I did right and got screwed! They did wrong and were rewarded for doing it! I would sooner turn funny( ie gay )than to do that again!
I have started to rebuild my life and when I get the chance. I intend to write a book for all the young guys out there. Titled: How to deal with women, without getting screwed! And underline would read, ” keep what you bought and paid for and don’t let the bitches take your kids, your home, your property or your money!
It could save some poor slob the twenty years of suffering I went through and it could seriously slow down the “epidemic of divorce” Because once your start holding women accountable for the “wrongs” they do, you will stop 97 % of them from pulling that shit! They will grow up socially, legally and morally!
September 30, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Robert Stevens said,
Sometimes she would like to run the show, and sometimes I let her. Sometimes I defer to her decisions. I love and trust her, she is loving and loyal. I am the same way. In fact , it was very hard to get accustomed to a woman that acts this way. I just wish I had found her first!
I have not one but two bitch exwives. They did wrong and I did right and I paid for it. I suffered for twenty years because of my faulty ” picker” I have learned, if a woman is a bitch, you can’t change her. So get your self a nice , nonwhite, no not black,but a hispanic or oriental female. Someone who understands the natural order and is not a rebellious bitch. Someone who is partnership material.
Don’t let the bureacrats stick their noses in your business. Don’t use these service, do every thing privately. Effectively end run the government terrorist and the feminazi agitators. They can go right on hating me and other men. I will go right on keeping them out of my business and date and marry whoever I damn well please!
September 30, 2007 at 7:34 pm
snootfish said,
October 1, 2007 at 5:41 am
snootfish said,
October 1, 2007 at 5:46 am
PolishKnight said,
FYI: I met my foreign _residing_ wife through match.com. IMBRA contains a loophole exempting so-called non-marriage brokers from the reporting requirement. I suspect it will become a loophole large enough to drive an American SUV through…
October 1, 2007 at 6:19 am
fourthwire said,
October 1, 2007 at 10:10 am
PolishKnight said,
What makes you think they didn’t try to close it this time? Match.com fought to get that loophole and these services are now used more and more often by mainstream local American women.
If the loophole got closed, get this, American WOMEN would have had to provide their criminal background checks before going online lest one of the men looking at her profile might be a foreigner. Kind of funny, eh?
Come to think of it, isn’t it amazing how helpless American women are in the dating scene? They can get hundreds of responses just by putting an ad on match.com. If they have a decent attitude (most of them don’t), they can increase the quality of the responses 10 fold. And yet, they are still miserable and angry that “there’s noone out there” for them and flood metro sections of newspapers with complaints.
I know Eastern European men (I now spend most of my time with them as part of the immigrant community) and they’re getting a bad rap even on anti-IMBRA sites. They’re portrayed as alcoholic wife beaters. Some of them are, certainly, but most are actually well educated, thoughtful, and mannered and most importantly: not soft on their women. They are from the same breeding stock as their women.
American men are referred to on pro-foreign-women sites as “PAM”’s (Pussified American Males) and with good reason: They tend to be slackers, buy into “equality” with women, are afraid to raise their voice to a woman (mommy wouldn’t approve), and are commitment phobic (for good reason.) An ultra successful career woman would wants a well educated, good looking man would do well to consider dating foreign men. The problem is that they don’t extend the ball-busting approach they used in their career to meeting men. They just want to put up an ad passively on match.com and have some perfect man next door walk up to them. They aren’t willing to do any work for relationships.
I would add that the same goes for a lot of men. If a man wants a foreign woman, he could (and maybe even should) spend some time with immigrants from the culture to get good advice and even learn the language. Visit the countries a few times. NOTHING can stop a “man” from meeting and marrying a good woman.
In conclusion: Even with IMBRA fully enforced, the barriers to men meeting good foreign women are a fraction of those that men face with the local sexual-harassment-screaming puschfraus we have here.
October 1, 2007 at 11:21 am
fourthwire said,
However, American women are a tougher sell than American men, generally speaking - green card prospects notwithstanding.
And the feminazis know this point themselves. Not to mention American women generally do NOT look abroad for husbands….
Polishknight: “What makes you think they didn’t try to close it this time? Match.com fought to get that loophole and these services are now used more and more often by mainstream local American women.”
fourthwire: What makes YOU think that the feminazis will not try HARDER to close that and any other loopholes, using the process of “creep” to accomplish what they could not manage to do in their initial success?
Polishknight: “If the loophole got closed, get this, American WOMEN would have had to provide their criminal background checks before going online lest one of the men looking at her profile might be a foreigner. Kind of funny, eh?”
fourthwire: Zero arguments there, my friend……. In fact, that’s downright poetic justice!
Perhaps the feminazis could manage to close the loophole in question by removing the gender-neutrality of IMBRA………
To the rest of your post - agreed, agreed, agreed!
October 1, 2007 at 11:31 am
PolishKnight said,
Anyways, some more food for thought:
“Not to mention American women generally do NOT look abroad for husbands”
That’s worth citing and putting in italics. Answer: American MEN generally do not look abroad for wives either. If they did, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
I don’t understand what you mean by “American women are a tougher sell than American men.” You’ll need to elaborate on that. What do you mean by “sell?” I THINK you might mean that the women want more out of men than men want out of women. Is that it?
A feminist on soc.men tried to downplay men’s attraction to foreign women by arguing that American women formed “welcoming committees” for foreign men who moved here. These men were highly attractive to local women due to their accents and exoticness. In theory, aging career women who supposedly are so smart and independent would use international personals to find highly desirable men.
fourthwire: What makes YOU think that the feminazis will not try HARDER to close that and any other loopholes, using the process of “creep” to accomplish what they could not manage to do in their initial success?
PolishKnight: Good question. My answer is that they didn’t want to step on the toes of LOCAL women who used these services this time and they will be MORE vulnerable, not LESS in the future since more and more women are using these services as fewer men are asking them out.
Yes?
Granted, rising internet use in general has a lot to do with it but most women back 10 years ago wouldn’t have dreamed of using personal ads or the web to meet men. They believed that they didn’t need to “work” at relationships. This delusion is slowly being shattered which is what led to the cattiness of IMBRA in the first place.
About gender neutrality: Constitutional challenges to IMBRA have been questionable due to this very quality. Granted, it’s a dissimilar situation but there is no “constitutional” right to a sponsored fiance visa that mostly men are requesting. If the gender neutral quality is removed, then that opens it up for direct challenge. Hello, that’s why the Dems went through the song-and-dance pony act that VAWA was gender neutral in terms of language in the act. They know the new courts might strike it down.
It’s not the gender neutrality that a future feminist-centric-IMBRA would need to address but rather the concern about killing off the few remaining ways that American men meet AMERICAN women. It’s ironic that if match.com were killed, that American men would find it more (but not perfectly) safe to use FOREIGN matchmaking services to meet LOCAL American women.
The closest parallel I can think of is the old PGP situation. Janet Reno wanted the encryption keys to our hard drives to protect us from terrorists (you know, people who bust into closets and point guns at small boys. OH, wait, that was her
Anyways, she banned high level PGP for this reason and Americans just got the software from overseas.
Finally, I did a lot of surfing to see if IMBRA had shut down so-called foreign marriage brokers and I haven’t seen evidence of this. So, for now, I don’t see that it’s done much for the feminists except giving a (temporary) (and small) mental relief to some insecure women. But that won’t last as they continue to read about men dating foreign women while their ad on match.com for a 6 foot liberal professional who wants to have kids right away goes unanswered…
October 1, 2007 at 12:49 pm
jackal1994 said,
It’s really not an un-solved mystery why marriages between American men and foreign women have a 5% divorce rate. Hmmmmm, let’s see the men are the same, the locale of living is the same, in fact everything is the same except the wife, so why is the divorce rate different, hmmmm–Oh I give up it’s too hard to figure out!
Without rampant divorce and lines of man-hating women forming lines longer than bread-lines in Russia, feminists know they are out of a job.
More importantly if enough men marry foreign women (say one on every other block) American women might ACTUALLY start to realize how complete and fulfilled these women are caring for a home and raising functional children and start to realize the empty bag of goods they’ve been handed with feminism and disposible no-fault(i.e. blame-the-man) divorces.
OHHHHHHH NO! This CAN’T be allowed say feminists! We’re NOT losing our gravy-train!
October 1, 2007 at 12:57 pm
mruffolo said,
The graph is near the bottom of the page
http://www.zonalatina.com/Zldata308.htm
When challenges presence themselves, the Latin wife is encouraged by her mom and girlfriends to work a solution with her husband. On the the hand in America, if family problems arise, then family and friends promote the wife to divorce the husband.
In the United States, a matriarch, happiness means divorce. In South America, a patriarch, happiness means family.
Saudi Arabia women:
“And according to research conducted recently by Nora Al Shamlan, chairman of the University Studies Center for Girls’ research unit, the divorce rate in Saudi Arabia has reached 60 percent. “The rate rose from 25 percent to 60 percent during the last 20 years,” confirms Al Hayat’s Fatima Al Aseemy.”
“The divorce rate has been rising because of the change in women’s status. The fact that women today have education and, more importantly, employment - which leads to their financial independence”
http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070327-064841-3047r
October 1, 2007 at 7:36 pm
fourthwire said,
And for the time being, I’m pinned down on the Left Coast, but in the future that situation WILL change. And it will be an even greater pleasure then to meet you and have a chat with you and your wife!
Now for a bit of clarification (sorry but today I’m a bit rushed……):
Polishknight: “……American MEN generally do not look abroad for wives either. If they did, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
fourthwire: I don’t understand what you mean by “American women are a tougher sell than American men.” You’ll need to elaborate on that.”……….
American men seldom look abroad for wives.
American women look abroad for husbands FAR LESS SO.
For the time being at least, American women are not looking abroad for alternatives to American men for marriage.
And rightfully so, since while there are plenty of foreign nationals who would have sex with American women, they aren’t exactly standing in line to marry American women.
At least in those nations “blessed” by American tourism and blessed by modern communications, the high-maintenance, passive-aggressive nature of so many American women is already relatively well-known.
Upshot: one would have to REALLY need a greencard to make THAT dish palatable!
On the other hand, American men have a relatively better reputation as potential spouses, certainly in some nations.
Mind you, I’m writing anecdotally, without statistical support.
Polishknight: “In theory, aging career women who supposedly are so smart and independent would use international personals to find highly desirable men.”
fourthwire: LOL…. and that’s correct, theoretically.
Unfortunately, as so many aging career women have discovered, men generally don’t get erections for their intelligence and independence. And they certainly don’t get erections on account of women “aging”.
Fairly or not, men’s attraction to women is GENERALLY based on women’s attractiveness, just as women’s attraction to men is GENERALLY based on men’s ability to financially support a family…..
……..which explains why even financially accomplished women STILL seek men who are even more accomplished than they themselves are.
Polishknight: “Granted, rising internet use in general has a lot to do with it but most women back 10 years ago wouldn’t have dreamed of using personal ads or the web to meet men. They believed that they didn’t need to “work” at relationships. This delusion is slowly being shattered which is what led to the cattiness of IMBRA in the first place.”
fourthwire: American women are prolific communications technology users, which provides them with a constant never-ending capacity to “hook up”….. which in turn provides them with a never-ending potential for cheating on their husbands and boyfriends……
…….which makes marriage to them even less attractive, since in America those women can often (and DO!) cheat, still take the house, bank account, any children, etc. through the courts.
But I get your point - and it’s interesting to note that through IMBRA, it’s clear that American women merely want to monopolize marriage as much as they can - they don’t understand that their own behavior is the basis for American men increasingly looking elsewhere…….
Polishknight: “Finally, I did a lot of surfing to see if IMBRA had shut down so-called foreign marriage brokers and I haven’t seen evidence of this. So, for now, I don’t see that it’s done much for the feminists except giving a (temporary) (and small) mental relief to some insecure women. But that won’t last as they continue to read about men dating foreign women while their ad on match.com for a 6 foot liberal professional who wants to have kids right away goes unanswered”
fourthwire: The only foreign marriage broker that I was personally aware of was Love of Asia - Vietnam - sponsored by an American who opened a Yahoo discussion group, together with his Vietnamese wife.
Upon hearing about the passage of IMBRA, they chose to close their services, rather than comply.
October 2, 2007 at 11:01 am
PolishKnight said,
Upon hearing about the passage of IMBRA, they chose to close their services, rather than comply.
Here’s the definition from the I-129 instructions:
October 2, 2007 at 6:33 pm
PolishKnight said,
fourthwire: The only foreign marriage broker that I was personally aware of was Love of Asia - Vietnam - sponsored by an American who opened a Yahoo discussion group, together with his Vietnamese wife.
Upon hearing about the passage of IMBRA, they chose to close their services, rather than comply.
Here’s the definition from the I-129 instructions:
October 2, 2007 at 6:34 pm
PolishKnight said,
fourthwire: The only foreign marriage broker that I was personally aware of was Love of Asia - Vietnam - sponsored by an American who opened a Yahoo discussion group, together with his Vietnamese wife.
Upon hearing about the passage of IMBRA, they chose to close their services, rather than comply.
Here’s the definition from the I-129 instructions:
October 2, 2007 at 6:35 pm
PolishKnight said,
Here’s the definition from the I-129 instructions:
The term “international marriage broker” does not include: Traditional matchmaking organizations of a cultural or religious nature that operate on a non-profit basis and is in compliance with the laws of the countries in which it operates including the laws of the United States..
It’s possible this man may have been running a non-profit matchmaking service. He would have been clean and free!
October 2, 2007 at 6:36 pm
fourthwire said,
The man and his wife were certainly running a commercial enterprise, and so his Love of Asia - Vietnam services certainly was subject to IMBRA.
Actually while the enterprise was his idea, his wife ran the operations, since she could more easily screen potential female candidates than he could.
In fact, I also recall their (written) confusion and outrage when they were first notified of the new rules - they had not even heard of IMBRA before then.
Their decision to fold was rather rapid - they could not in good conscience collect personal information from their male clients to turn over to foreign nationals, over whom they had no control.
October 2, 2007 at 8:09 pm
PolishKnight said,
The solution in this case would have been for them to open up the enterprise to local Vietnamese people as well and given them ad space. The husband/wife team would make more money on translation services, referrals, travel, etc.
The key would be for them to look like match.com with extras.
October 2, 2007 at 9:43 pm
fourthwire said,
Just how quickly would YOU send your personal information (police reports, prior marriage history, etc. as required by IMBRA) overseas?
Not very quickly, I suspect.
And no, I was not describing a “local service”, since the couple maintained an office in Vietnam for the operations, staffed and run by Vietnamese locals.
October 2, 2007 at 10:20 pm
PolishKnight said,
In answer to your question, it’s moot. The issue is whether overseas services would be able to escape the requirement in the first place.
You are describing a local service if they maintain an office here and use that as their presence to reassure customers that they are protected by U.S. law. THAT office would be vulnerable to IMBRA.
October 3, 2007 at 7:00 am
fourthwire said,
fourthwire: Really? I don’t agree. It’s the American men who are being forced to send THEIR personal information to an international marriage broker, and there’s no guarantee that this information will not be sold, stolen, or otherwise misused.
Polishknight: “The issue is whether overseas services would be able to escape the requirement in the first place.”
fourthwire: In fact that detail WAS addressed in IMBRA, and I don’t have the time or patience to check how. In fact the American government STILL can drop the ax on the couple, for whom they are the sole source of immigration permissions.
Polishknight: “You are describing a local service if they maintain an office here and use that as their presence to reassure customers that they are protected by U.S. law. THAT office would be vulnerable to IMBRA.”
fourthwire: In fact, I was describing a “local” service with the office in the foreign nation, i.e. Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines.
October 3, 2007 at 10:50 pm
PolishKnight said,
About whether the axe can be dropped on foreign run companies: I went to a number of websites (and posted the URL’s in the last MND discussion) and it appears that there is no impact at this time. The couple apply and list the foreign “marriage broker” and visas are still be granted even if the man didn’t send a police report overseas. THAT MAY CHANGE. But FOR NOW, these discussion sites haven’t seen anything.
There’s an additional loophole (from the I-129 form in the previous thread)
“Describe the circumstances under which you met. If you have not personally met each other, explain how the relationship was established. If you met your fiance(e) or spouse though [sic] an international marriage broker, pelase explain those circumstances in Question 19 below. Explain also in detail any reasons you may have for requesting that the requirement that you and your fiance(e) must have met should not apply to you.”
The context of “met” shows an actual physical meeting: “the requirement that you and your fiance must have met” in reference to “personally met”.
If the couple is INTRODUCED and become penpals through a so-called “broker” but arranged THEIR OWN *PHYSICAL* meeting, it’s clear that the answer to whether the “meeting” was arranged through a marriage broker is a firm NO based upon the above definition. The couple met and arranged a marriage on their own. As you know, some of the services actually arrange for the physical meetings and even do the paperwork.
This loophole exists because the previous K-1 had a requirement of a physical meeting and this was the wording used to ask the question. The IMBRA wording was added on top of it.
If there was no office and they worked remote (through the web), then they shouldn’t even have been on the radar. The key would be for them to not have any kind of local business presence in the U.S. for the immigration authorities to sue. As individuals, they are not responsible for the failure of a foreign company to collect documents.
Listen, the left knows how to get the maximum traction from the law when it suits them. There’s no reason to feel guilty about the right trying it. I’m going to bring this up with a lawyer friend and get back to you. Fair enough?
October 4, 2007 at 9:14 am
Jim Peterson said,
Jeeeez. I can never understand the capacity of Americans to just take something like this lying down.
I know for sure now how easy it was for the Germans to just accept the National Socialist progam because it was touted as “good for women and children”.
And by the way: The horrible part of the law is not the background check per se, but the fact that tens of thousands of women who do not have email can NEVER approve of contact in writing no matter what the background check says. They have either been taken off the Internet or a man pays $20 or a monthly membership to write to them and the woman NEVER sees his correspondance, ever.
I know this business and it is now just that of taking a man’s money but not actually making sure the woman ever reads it.
In the past, a man was able to send a telegram to the woman’s postal address and meet her right away. Foreigners who want such info posted are always glad to meet Americans when they visit on short notice or otherwise.
October 23, 2007 at 6:23 am