Yes, marriage fraud is a federal felony. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1325(b), knowingly entering a marriage to evade U.S. immigration law carries up to five years in federal prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1325 – Improper Entry by Alien Both the U.S. citizen and the foreign national face the same charges, and the foreign national also faces immigration consequences that often outlast the criminal sentence.
The Statute and the Charges That Travel With It
Prosecutors rarely bring the marriage fraud charge by itself. A single sham marriage usually generates several federal felonies at once, and each one is independently punishable.
- False statements under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 cover any materially false answer on a federal immigration form, and carry up to five years in prison.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1001 – Statements or Entries Generally
- Document fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1546 covers forged, altered, or misused immigration documents like visas and registration cards.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1546 – Fraud and Misuse of Visas, Permits, and Other Documents
- Conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371 applies whenever two or more people agree to carry out the scheme and take any step toward completing it, adding up to another five years for each person involved.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 371 – Conspiracy to Commit Offense or to Defraud United States
Because these are federal immigration offenses, cases are tried in federal court. Stacked charges give prosecutors leverage during plea negotiations, and they are the reason the real exposure in a marriage fraud case is almost always higher than the five years listed in the headline statute.
What Sentences Actually Look Like
Statutory maximums describe the ceiling, not the norm. A first-time participant in a simple two-person scheme often receives a sentence measured in months rather than years. Organized operations draw harsher treatment. In one Homeland Security Investigations case out of San Diego, an agency arranged at least 600 fraudulent marriages between 2016 and 2022, charging clients between $20,000 and $35,000 per marriage; the operators received sentences ranging from five to twenty-two months.5Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Operators of Large-Scale Marriage Fraud Agency Sentenced Following HSI San Diego, Partner Investigation Brokers and repeat offenders consistently receive longer sentences than one-off participants.
Both spouses are equally liable. The government does not treat the U.S. citizen as the lesser participant: a citizen who agrees to marry someone for $20,000 faces the same felony counts as the person seeking the green card. A conviction also carries collateral consequences that outlast prison, including loss of professional licenses, loss of firearm rights, and the employment problems that follow any federal felony record.
What Counts as Marriage Fraud
The legal test is whether the couple intended to establish a life together at the time of the marriage. If they did not, the marriage is fraudulent even if the ceremony was real and the license was valid.6United States Department of Justice. Criminal Resource Manual 1948 – Marriage Fraud – 8 USC 1325(c) and 18 USC 1546 Typical examples include paying a U.S. citizen to go through with a wedding, marrying with the plan to divorce as soon as the green card arrives, marrying through a broker, and marrying to escape removal proceedings already underway.
A marriage that began with genuine intentions and later fell apart is not fraud. Divorce by itself is not evidence of a sham. What matters is what both people intended on the wedding day. A three-year marriage that ends in a bitter divorce looks nothing like a marriage where the spouses never lived together and filed for divorce the week the green card arrived.
Immigration Consequences for the Foreign National
The criminal case runs on one track; the immigration case runs on another. For many foreign nationals the immigration side is worse because it is permanent.
Under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(G), a foreign national is deportable if they were admitted based on a marriage less than two years old and that marriage is annulled or terminated within two years of entry. The burden shifts to the foreign national to prove the marriage was genuine.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1227 – Deportable Aliens
A finding of fraud or willful misrepresentation also triggers permanent inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(C)(i).8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1182 – Inadmissible Aliens That is a lifetime bar on visas, entry, and any future immigration benefit, including a later genuine marriage to a different U.S. citizen. A narrow waiver exists but requires proof of extreme hardship to a qualifying U.S. citizen or permanent resident relative, and approval is not routine.
Federal law also builds a fraud check into the green card itself. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1186a, when a foreign national obtains residence through a marriage less than two years old, they receive only conditional status.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1186a – Conditional Permanent Resident Status In the 90 days before the second anniversary of that status, both spouses must jointly petition to remove the conditions and appear for an interview. A separated couple or a suspicious record at that stage can lead to denial and removal proceedings. Many fraudulent marriages come apart at this point.
How Immigration Officers Spot a Sham
No single factor proves fraud, but clusters of warning signs trigger closer scrutiny. Officers look for spouses living at different addresses, the absence of joint bank accounts, leases, insurance, or tax filings, a rushed courtship with no mutual friends or family, large age or language gaps, and a marriage timed suspiciously close to a visa overstay, a prior denial, or the start of removal proceedings. If the petitioning spouse previously obtained their own green card through marriage less than five years earlier, USCIS applies a heightened evidentiary standard.
When those signals appear, USCIS can schedule a Stokes interview. The couple is interviewed together and then separated and asked the same mundane questions about their daily life: which side of the bed each sleeps on, what they ate the night before, how they spent the last holiday, the layout of their home. Genuine couples answer easily; sham couples contradict each other, and the inconsistencies can support a fraud finding.
Digital evidence has become part of the review. USCIS has a Social Media Division within its Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, and as of 2025 the Department of Homeland Security collects social media handles on several immigration forms, including the Form I-751 petition to remove conditions on residence. Officers compare what the couple says about their relationship with what their public activity shows.
How Long the Government Has to Charge the Case
The federal statute of limitations for marriage fraud, like most non-capital federal crimes, is five years from the date of the offense.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3282 – Limitations That generally means prosecutors need to bring criminal charges within five years of the ceremony or the filing of the fraudulent petition.
The criminal clock does not stop the immigration side. USCIS can deny a petition, revoke a green card, or begin removal based on marriage fraud discovered at any point. And if the person obtained U.S. citizenship through the fraudulent marriage, there is no statute of limitations on civil denaturalization, so the government can move to strip citizenship decades later.
A Note for Spouses in Abusive Marriages
A foreign national trapped in an abusive marriage may fear that leaving will destroy their status, and abusive spouses sometimes use that fear to control them. The Violence Against Women Act lets abuse victims self-petition for a green card without the abusive spouse’s knowledge or consent by filing Form I-360.11U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Green Card for VAWA Self-Petitioner The self-petitioner must still show the marriage was entered in good faith. VAWA protects spouses who married in good faith and were later abused; it does not provide a path for someone who knowingly participated in a sham marriage.