GAO Says 398 Sex Offenders Filed Family-Based Petitions in 2005

[Admin]

Perhaps the most disturbing statistic is:

* 14 of those 398 sex offenders are classified as "sexually violent predators" - AND,
* Of those 14 - 3 of them filed petitions for children.

As a percentage of the total of immigrant petitions filed, the numbers may be small - BUT - what are your thoughts as to whether ANY number of sexual predators should be allowed to sponsor new immigrants into the US?

The full GAO report is attached to this post.

- Dan

[BillyB]

what are your thoughts as to whether ANY number of sexual predators should be allowed to sponsor new immigrants into the US?

I personally wouldn't want any sexual predator to marrying anybody. But our government allows sexual predators to marry domestic men and women without making them disclose who they are. There should be one standard across the board in protecting people from marrying sexual predators.

But it's a screwed up system. Just because one is labeled a sex predator doesn't mean he's bad. Same goes with men who were accused of false DV. Not too long ago, a boy age 17 got sexually involved with his girlfriend a few years younger and was convicted as a child molestor and he must carry that label the rest of his life. With loose interpretation of the definition of sex predator and child molestor, I'd bet over half the guys in this forum could be convicted based on something they did in their past.

[Flyfisheron]

"Just because someone is labeled a sex predator doesn't mean that he's bad"

Wow.  I don't know what to respond to that.  So what is our definition of "bad" in this new polically correct world?  And to compare a 'convicted' sexual offender with someone 'accused' of domestic violence just doesn't seem right.

To the original question - my opinion - no.  What I got from the article though was more along the lines of whether the sponsored person should be notified of the conviction.  Sorry ACLU, but I believe that they have a right to know.

[William3rd]

Oh Yeah-  there are some very nice pedophile priests still in service and think of all the joy that Michael Jackson still brings to childrens' lives.

And we havent even gotten to the convicted ones yet.

Should a conviction or plea bargain be revealed?

DAMN BET'CHA!!!!!!

[Admin]

"Just because someone is labeled a sex predator doesn't mean that he's bad"

Wow.  I don't know what to respond to that.  So what is our definition of "bad" in this new polically correct world?  And to compare a 'convicted' sexual offender with someone 'accused' of domestic violence just doesn't seem right.

To the original question - my opinion - no.  What I got from the article though was more along the lines of whether the sponsored person should be notified of the conviction.  Sorry ACLU, but I believe that they have a right to know.

If you look at page 10 of the report, you will find a more definitive listing of the offenses. Some seem to be potentially benign. For example - "obscene material possession". I am not sure what is required for someone to be convicted of that, but at first blush I can imagine a LOT of people might find themselves convicted of that "crime" which does not mean the person is dangerous to another.

OTOH - a conviction for "Rape-strong arm" or "Sex assault - sodomy boy" would clearly seem to be information that a beneficiary should know before committing their lives, and those of their children, to being exposed to that person.

Quite honestly, I am of two minds on this topic. I feel strongly there are WAAAYYYY too many people labeled as "sex offenders" who are not dangerous to others. OTOH, I would hate for there to be someone victimized by a predator, and it could have been prevented with a simple disclosure requirement.

Part of the reason I like this report is - it offers something which is sadly-lacking in the decision-making and legislation which has transpired to this point - and that is, some hard cold facts and statistics.

It still remains for all of us to interpret those statistics - but at least there are a few objective stats for us to consider.

FWIW

- Dan

[BillyB]

  So what is our definition of "bad" in this new polically correct world? 

If you ever had a girlfriend under the age of 18 you had oral sex with, you could be convicted as a child molestor and get 10 years in prison even if the girl consented and you too were under the age of 18.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,281292,00.html

If you as an adult was kissing an adult female and you thought the time was right for love and proceeded to touch her breasts to stimulate her, she may think the time isn't right and say "I'm not ready" or she could accuse you of being a sexual predator. You could be in big trouble especially if the local prosecutor is an overzealous feminist.

Like I said earlier, over half the guys here could be classified as a sex predator or child molestor.

[William3rd]

They do not differentiate whether there was a plea bargain or guilty plea or jury claim. Some of them may be a lot more reprehensible than their innocuous offense may indicate.

Some of you all may want to invite them over for dinner and let them hang with the wife and kids because they might actually be REAL good on the inside.

I think I will pass on the bonding part. . . . .

[Flyfisheron]

I can understand the arguements made on behalf of the 'victimless' crimes, and agree with some of them.  I guess, depending on what state one is from, things that are labeled as 'sexually deviant' may not be considered so by many of us.  The laws tend to be a little different up here in the Great White North.

What is the definition of a 'sexual predator' in the U.S.?

Personally, I don't have an issue with a potential sponoree being notified of a criminal past.  Is this not something that should be on the table anyway?  Especially with someone that you are attempting to bring in as a fiancee or spouse.  Good or bad, I would expect to know.

[Admin]

I can understand the arguements made on behalf of the 'victimless' crimes, and agree with some of them.  I guess, depending on what state one is from, things that are labeled as 'sexually deviant' may not be considered so by many of us.  The laws tend to be a little different up here in the Great White North.

What is the definition of a 'sexual predator' in the U.S.?

Personally, I don't have an issue with a potential sponoree being notified of a criminal past.  Is this not something that should be on the table anyway?  Especially with someone that you are attempting to bring in as a fiancee or spouse.  Good or bad, I would expect to know.

Re: Disclosure of Criminal Record. In general terms, yes, absolutely. Anyone who is considering sharing their lives together should have no problem disclosing this information - and much more.

There is an important element which is not addressed in the report - and that is the TIMING of the disclosure.

All of us have some things in our pasts which we fully expect to disclose to a serious love interest - and plan to do so at the appropriate point. Would you expect to be required to divulge that information BEFORE being able to say 'Hello' to someone? THAT is what IMBRA demands.

Should someone be required to disclose that they were convicted of having pornographic images on their laptop PC, hence, were in possession of "obscene materials"? OK - I can buy that I should divulge that to a prospective life-partner - but I don't think it is the sort of thing I would "lead" with in making an introduction.

- Dan

[William3rd]

I agree with you that the disclosure shouldnt have to be at first contact.

However, I think that the powers that be are arbitrarily picking a time that can be controlled and verified. In all probability, there is no other time that would put the onus on the agency to make sure it is done and also allows the woman to view the proferred information dispassionately-before she has an emotional investment.

[Muj]

Possibly half of them may have left the shade open when they showered and the neighborhood prude pressed charges.  However it is very disturbing that bonefide sex offenders, by most cultures descriptions, are sponsoring women and children.  IMBRA is doing a good job if it reduces these cases.

[Flyfisheron]

Have just slogged through 'some' of the IMBRA act.... My gawd, who's passing the laws down there?

Up until now, I have only looked at this from the perspective of whether disclosure should be required upon an attempted sponsorship.  This whole IMBRA thing really puts things into a different perspective.

Part of me sees this from both sides of the coin.  Do I even want to initiate contact with a woman who has numerous convictions for an assortment of crimes?  At the same time, if I was meeting someone in my 'home town' this isn't something that I wouldn't expect to have been notified of before I offered to buy her a drink.

I'd still like to know what the legal definition of a sexual deviant is in the US.

[Gator]

I can not open the attachment; however, does it distinguish between sexual predators and sexual offender?  

The latter seemingly would include "Lewd and Lascivious Acts" such as public urination, something I have done myself.  I know a man arrested for this during his university days, and he is now named by his local newspaper in its periodic list of "sexual offenders living in your neighborhood" without explanation of his particular crime.

[BillyB]

They do not differentiate whether there was a plea bargain or guilty plea or jury claim. Some of them may be a lot more reprehensible than their innocuous offense may indicate.

True but the biggest difference from the guy in the foxnews story and some guys here was that he was caught and convicted for having consensual oral sex with his girlfriend and we weren't. The fact that a judge tried release him from prison tells me he reviewed the case and wasn't thrilled with the punishment of a "mandatory" 10 year prison sentence for having consensual oral sex with a minor. A judge or jury couldn't reduce the sentence if they wanted to. The punishment doesn't fit the crime and quite possibly it shouldn't have been classified as a crime. But because whoever defined the law, the man will have to register as a sex offender wherever he lives for the rest of his life and certainly I wouldn't have him over for dinner at my house because of it.

The justice system needs to do a better job of distinguishing the seriously perverted and morally bankrupt from guys who are simply initiating acts of love the way nature intended.

Sometimes the justice system doesn't do enough and there are flaws revealed. Remember the Ukrainian girl in Washington State who was abducted and killed by a man who was previously convicted of raping of an underage relative? What the hell was he walking the streets for? He was also an immigrant, why wasn't he deported?

Here's another one getting to walk the streets freely.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290603,00.html

Personally, I don't have an issue with a potential sponoree being notified of a criminal past.  Is this not something that should be on the table anyway?  Especially with someone that you are attempting to bring in as a fiancee or spouse.  Good or bad, I would expect to know.

The problem with IMBRA to make people disclose criminal past is that it's not fair and doesn't solve the root of the problem which is preventing real criminals from getting involved in other people's lives foreign or domestic. First of all it's hard to differentiate the innocent from the people who made a mistake from the really bad criminals. While IMBRA will make it hard for bad guys to marry foreign women, it doesn't solve the problem and criminals who intend to do foreign women harm will in turn focus their attention on domestic women instead.  If it's a good thing to make people provide complete background checks to others who they want to have a relationship with, the government should enact a law and make all people do that, not just target people seeking love overseas. Do you think the general population is open to that idea? Probably not but it's okay to pick on the small amount of men/women who marry foreigners.

In America, you can be convicted of Domestic Violence based on a woman "fearing" physical harm from you. You can imagine how many innocents were found guilty based on women using those grounds to punish their man. Some foreign women use DV as a tool to divorce their man/mule than required to get a green card because DV guarantees the green card. It's hard to tell the innocent men from the guilty anymore as long as the feminists continue to lobby Congress and get their language in the laws being created.

Here's a county prosecutor defining DV. If any of your family members ever feared physical harm real or imaginary, you're guilty.

http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/domviol/what.htm

[Misha]

It is important to keep in mind that foreigners are not idiots. On one of the Russian sites, the women were advising each other how to look up men using sites such as http://www.intelius.com/.  For less than $10 they can get a complete background check of any suitor.

[William3rd]

The Megan's Law websites are pretty comprehensive. . . .

[Flyfisheron]

I agree that IMBRA is going much too far.  Unfortunately, in todays North America lableing something as a 'femist issue' guarantees passage in the legislature (women have been oppressed for so long, who cares if the pendulum swings a little too far in the opposite direction).

Don't even get me started on the DV issue.  I've been exposed to the whole false accuasation scenerio (ex wife was allowed to disappear with with my kids for a month and a half based on accusations even though nothing had ever happened, and the children stated repeatedly that nothing along the lines of what she was stating had ever happened).

[Bruno]

And we havent even gotten to the convicted ones yet.

William3rd, you are a lawer... so, you know the laws like these :

- The only acceptable sexual position in Washington D.C. is the missionary-style position. Any other sexual position is considered illegal.

- In Willowdale, Oregon no man may curse while having sex with his wife.

- In the state of Washington there is a law against having sex with a virgin under any circumstances. (Including the wedding night).

- In Oblong, Illinois, it's punishable by law to make love while hunting or fishing on your wedding day.

- In Nevada sex without a condom is considered illegal.

- The owner of every hotel in Hastings, Nebraska, is required to provide each guest with a clean and pressed nightshirt. No couple, even if they are married, may sleep together in the nude. Nor may they have sex unless they are wearing one of these clean, white cotton nightshirts.

... etc ... seem that USA have a lot of crazy law related to sex !!! Very asy to become a sex offender !!!

[William3rd]

actually, it is a little harder than that to be required to register as a sex offender in most cases.

I have addressed DV and the like on other threads. . .

In San Francisco, parolee pedophiles have trouble finding a place to live because of restrictive laws concerning being located near places where children congregate. Naturally, they are all misunderstood and not guilty.

Perhaps some of our SF based membership would like to invite them all over. . .

[timothe]

I can not open the attachment;

Just download the free Acrobat reader from Adobe's website:

www.adobe.com

[MidnightinMoscow]

I am surprised to find an atmosphere here where nobody seems to be gearing up for a simple challenge to IMBRA in a US federal courthouse. Someone please print the below text and take it into a courthouse over lunch today if you live in a city with a federal courthouse.

In recent court cases against the new dating site law IMBRA, see http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2006/0111.html, a Republican judge Thomas Rose said “There is no fundamental liberty interest for an American to contact a foreigner for a relationship.” A Democrat judge, Clarence Cooper, upheld IMBRA in March 2007 saying “Meeting someone online is like buying a gun, both should require background checks”. Obviously, both of these judges need to be removed from the bench. We need someone like you to help stop this madness. 

The linked article shows that the background checks on American men are not the main outrage of IMBRA. The main outrage is that the US Government is telling women what they must do in order to socialize. A woman has the right to broadcast her personal contact information to everyone and anyone...and the US government simply does not have the right to take her rights away, period.

In what a Washington insider told me amounted to "Forced Informed Consent", foreign women, who have no official right to complain in a US federal court, are being forced to give “written approval” of every contact.

Not only does the US government effectively hamper communication between foreign women and US citizens, it hampers their communication with everyone, including men in their own country.

And IMBRA completely destroys communication when the women do not have email addresses or constant access to the Internet:

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/10/24/imbra-completely-stops-communication-between-adults-background-checks-are-a-secondary-concern/

It is in everyone's interest to prune back on legislation that has gone too far. This law, if upheld and enforced, will cause major backlash from they type of white male professionals who have supported feminist initiatives up to the present time.

1) IMBRA steals the right of anonymity from Internet communications. If someone is OK with laws that make it illegal to lie to someone on the Internet or cheat on one's spouse, the loss of anonymity would still be a huge loss.

But can you really see the Supreme Court upholding the right of the US federal government to block married people from cheating on their spouse?

2) IMBRA attacks a laudable activity, that of a man wanting to find a decent woman for possible friendship and, as happens with 1% of the people who meet each other, eventual marriage. But dangerous ideologues in Washington DC have been pretending that international online dating websites have something to do with men wanting to find easy sexual partners overseas. Craig’s List, a major US company, features foreign women advertising themselves as prostitutes. If there is any need to persecute men who look overseas for sex, then the users of Craig’s List should be persecuted via background checks. But not even Craig’s List can be accused of being involved with “sex trafficking,” which we can show is an over-hyped phenomenon unrelated to the online dating industry but which feeds charlatans with federal tax dollars. Furthermore, it can be shown that most foreign males consider the USA to be the sex tourism capital of the world. It can be shown that the ubiquitous strip clubs in America are venues where any sexually obsessed male can find “happiness,” which helps explain why the American men who leave the US to date foreign women are mostly serious about finding real relationships.

3) There is no such thing as a Mail Order Bride. Every American on the street agrees that the US Government must stop using that term. I know Russian women who would gladly be plaintiffs against IMBRA if that were possible. IMBRA takes away the right of foreign women to decide their own level of security. Women without email have the right to request to be phoned or telegrammed, both of which do not lend themselves to signing "written approval" of contact with a man. If this were a privacy issue, then the law would say that the foreigners should sign in writing that they are OK with being members of a social interaction site, but investigating the specific criminal backgrounds of the Americans and then getting the mostly impossible to get "written approval for each contact" goes way too far.

4)   IMBRA violates the Right to Assemble. It causes excessive delays. Russian women without email want to be contacted immediately and they have the right to allow themselves to be called or telegrammed at their home address. Despite district court rulings to the contrary, there actually is a fundamental liberty interest in an American contacting a foreigner and, no, contacting a gun shop owner does not require a background check.

5)  The book 1984 dealt with a government interfering with a relationship and "disclosing" important information to the woman in order to break up the relationship.

6) There is no such thing as a Marriage Broker. The IMBRA definition says it is a social interaction site with less than 50% American women on it. That is insane. It could also include Adultfriendfinder.com, Craigs List and Match.com. Why are the porn dating sites exempt from this law? Oh yes, because the Congress was afraid of the porn lobby but not the marriage-minded man lobby. If IMBRA had been applied fairly, the woman who was just killed by answering a Craigs List ad would not be dead…but at tremendous cost to freedom.

7) The Tahirih Justice Center is the main author and defender of the law. They do not represent foreign women, but rather rake in some good salaries while they claim to represent some battered women. Absolute proof that they are dishonest comes in the way they say "More than 50% of US women's shelters have reported some kind of abuse of a [foreign born Internet bride]". Anyone who knows statistics can easily see that it would not indicate any trend at all if 100% of US women's shelters had experienced at least one case of such abuse. The fact that only 50% of shelter's saw such abuse indicates that foreign brides are treated much better than domestic brides who suffer a 7% abuse rate that causes 100% of shelters to experience a case.

Tahirih actually used the phrase "mail order bride" in that sentence but I cannot bring myself to use that racist, derogatory phrase which is designed by Marxists to belittle their "wards" whom they say they want to "protect." In court, Tahirih will face real foreign women who despise how Tahirih is trying to run their lives and “represent them”.

      Domestic Violence is not an enumerated power of the Congress and it should have nothing to do with how people meet each other.

9)      One cannot allow the existence of new technology to make paper letter writing illegal. That would be like saying that riding a bike is illegal because the car was invented. You cannot ask a website or an American serviceman to take 3 months to send each man's background check by snail mail around the world and get a signed response back that contact is OK with that one man. IMBRA seems OK only because it would not hamper communications much if all women used anonymous webmail dating sites like Match.com. US legislators pathetically assumed that the world's women would "get with the program" and go high tech and go paranoid in their communications with men.

10)      IMBRA is like the 1907 Expatriation Act where a male-dominated Congress tried to stop American women from marrying foreigners without loss of American citizenship.

11)      You cannot take a subset of Americans and say they "tend to be violent" and take away their rights a priori. The government cannot enforce background checks on inner city black men who go to liquor stores and then use dating sites. One cannot ask gay men for AIDs test results before being able to say hi to gay men on Gay.com.

12)  The trend in extra-jurisdictional lawmaking has to be stopped. The use of the Internet by Americans overseas for non-criminal purposes cannot be regulated.

We businessmen and veterans are not a criminal class to be background checked because it is supposed to be "suspicious" that we travel.

The official definition of "marriage broker" is any social interaction website where the quota of American women is less than 50%. That is insane social protectionism.

Of course, IMBRA is also part of the $Billion "Domestic Violence Industry" as described in the following two articles:

http://www.newswithviews.com/NWV-News/news10.htm

http://www.newswithviews.com/Roberts/carey193.htm

Finally, does anyone agree with what a Republican Judge Thomas Rose said about IMBRA:

"There is no fundamental liberty interest in an American contacting a foreigner". May 26, 2006 (just before Memorial Day)

Now, after reading this, the reader should ask himself or herself: What precise reason is keeping you from walking into a federal courthouse to challenge this and to get an immediate restraining order?

Don't think "That was tried before by European Connections and it failed".

Not one of the above arguments was used by European Connections in their case.

European Connections did not challenge IMBRA. They only said that, as a business, they should not be liable for when men lie. The transcripts of that case reveal that nobody has ever seriously challenged IMBRA.

[William3rd]

So- which federal courthouse did you file in again?

[Admin]

So- which federal courthouse did you file in again?

Bill,

Unless I am mistaken, this poster is currently living overseas - maybe Finland.

I wonder though, is there anything to prevent a US expatriate currently residing overseas, from availing themselves of the US legal system? I would presume, since this is a federal law and affects men living overseas, that he would have standing to file the case. What do you think?

- Dan

[BC]

European Connections did not challenge IMBRA. They only said that, as a business, they should not be liable for when men lie. The transcripts of that case reveal that nobody has ever seriously challenged IMBRA.

I think they simply did not have, or want to spend the kind of money needed to take things 'to the top'.  After all, why should they spend serious bucks to help someone else's bottom line.

As long as someone is not collecting a million or two this ain't going nowhere..  The opposition is already well bankrolled. 'Power of the bush.. ' (not Bush)

[MidnightinMoscow]

I think the lawyer was being sarcastic. 

Let me explain IMBRA better so we don't hear the words "disclosure" anymore instead of "background check" and we don't assume that having a clean background check will save one from having communication with a particular person completely blocked by logistics:

1) Let's say an American is in Kiev on a Saturday morning with a flight back to the States on Monday evening.

2) He or she spots 1 or 2 people on an American-owned dating site whom he or she would like to meet in Kiev.

3) Before IMBRA, $12 would have bought a cell phone number or chance to telegram the other person and the two would be having lunch at Saturday at Noon...with enough time to get to know each other very well by the time the flight left on Monday evening back to the US.

4) With IMBRA (and assuming a site complies with it), the 5 second sex offender check cannot be performed until late Monday afternoon Kiev time when the American dating site employees come to work. Thus, assuming that the Ukrainian is sitting at her computer waiting for emails, she and he would only have the chance to meet each other as he checks in at the airport to go home.

5) QED: No matter how clean the record of the American, the US government will have succeeded in making sure two people, outside the jurisdication of the United States, did NOT meet each other. This discouragement by delay is the purpose of the law of course...although it violates the Right to Assemble in a big way.

6) Even if the flight home were scheduled for Tuesday night, there would be a high likelihood of the two not getting in contact with each other in time because IMBRA is mostly complied with via email and many Ukrainians do not read email very often. Better to have called or telegrammed.

7) Even if the American had moved permanently to Kiev, there would be a distinct possibility that the foreigner never had email, thus making it mostly impossible for that foreigner to be contacted while IMBRA is complied with, and the site is complying with IMBRA as a way to just take a person's money and not give out the personal contact information that the foreigner wanted to be given out in the first place (preservation of the database).

So IMBRA totally destroys communication between all but those who try to communicate with email fanatics.

But Americans take it for granted that anyone worth knowing is waiting with baited breathe at the other end of an Internet connection. So a lot of new guys will never know the difference unless they learn about it by happening to come on a post like this.

Meanwhile, it isn't geography that is stopping me but a temporary project. If I had two weeks spare time, I could easily fly to the US to file and then fly back for a 4 day trial.

That being said, I would like to know if I could file without having to leave Europe.

I know a lot about what happened with European Connections at their trial and it had nothing to do with money. They basically tried to be politically correct and friendly to the Tahirih Justice Center at their trial and they realized later that this was a mistake. In a federal challenge, if you do not front-end load all the concepts and information possible into your arguments, you are not allowed to go back later and try to bring them up (in an appeal for instance).

In a federal challenge, everything one concedes cannot be taken back in an appeals court and each concession is something a judge doesn't have to bother even thinking any more about. So for example, when EC tried to say they should be excluded from IMBRA because they operated an anonymous webmail service, they said "it is wrong to give out personal contact information before you know someone". Although no government in the history of the world has ever codified that paranoid concept into law, by conceding it, the judge never had to think about the repercussions of upholding that concept as law.

Basically, in court, if you don't ask a judge to rule on a concept, he or she doesn't have to.

If someone here is going to challenge IMBRA, he or she cannot concede anything, especially the idea that the TJC had "good intentions" when the TJC makes it very clear that they despise Americans who would like to meet Russians.

European Connections did not explain the critical explanation I just made in the Kiev scenario above, and that is why Judge Cooper said he saw no reason why anyone would be burdened by having to show a background check which he (and everyone else apparently) just assumed would be magically read in an instant by the foreigner...thus causing a seemless communication process, even when an American might be visiting a foreign city for only 2 days on a weekend.

Anyone can win instantly against IMBRA with the above 12 arguments. This is highlighted by the fact that nobody has even dared to try to refute the above arguments.

How could a judge say with a straight face "foreign women must accept forced informed consent"?

The simple fact is that not enough people know about IMBRA yet. The media has done everything it could do to not talk about it.