Questions & Answers regarding the
International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 (IMBRA)
Q. What is IMBRA?
A. IMBRA (International Marriage Broker Regulation Act)
is legislation that, in theory, is supposed to give foreign
women more information about US men. It was attached (it
failed to pass when it was initially introduced on its own) to
the larger Violence Against Women and Department of Justice
Reauthorization Act. It recently passed and went into effect
on or about March 6th, 2006.
Q. Does this law apply to me?
A. If you are a United States citizen or resident this
law applies to you. If you already have the address or other
contact information there will be no change at all for you and
you can use any of our services such as
Express Mail Forwarding
or Phone Translations, etc.
Q. What if I do not have the contact
information of the woman or women I am interested in?
A. If you do not
have the contact information for the women you are interested
in you should go to
A Russian Romance - http://www.forrussianwomen.com,
the business model on this website allows us to continue to
serve you and still comply with the new law. We will be
implementing a form that you will need fill out containing
information about your criminal and marital background
history. We will store the information provided from the form
and the results (if any) from the required electronic search
of the National Sex Offender public registry and state public
registry (http://www.nsopr.gov/)
and supply this information to any woman who you may contact.
Once we do that and the woman agrees that she has received it,
it will allow her to give out her contact information to you
in her letter if she wants to do so.
Q. What if I use another service that does not comply or a
foreign service?
A. The law states that it does not matter where the
company was set up, United States, Russia etc.the company
still must comply with this law if it is providing contact
information to US citizens or residents. The problem will come
in when your fiancé applies for her visa. The consular officer
must ask her how she met and if she used the services of an
International Matchmaker Organization. If you used an agency
that does not comply her fiancé visa can and probably will be
denied. Thus it is very important that you use an agency that
is complying with this legislation.
Q. Is there now a limit as to how many Fiancé visas I can
process?
A. The law is somewhat vague on that issue, below is an
excerpt from the law that addresses the number of fiancйe
visas one can request: Subject to subparagraphs (B) and (C), a
consular officer may not approve a petition under paragraph
(1) unless the officer has verified that--
(i) the petitioner has not, previous to the pending petition,
petitioned under paragraph (1) with respect to two or more
applying aliens; and
(ii) if the petitioner has had such a petition previously
approved, 2 years have elapsed since the filing of such
previously approved petition.
(B) The Secretary of Homeland Security may, in the Secretary's
discretion, waive the limitations in subparagraph (A) if
justification exists for such a waiver.
Except in extraordinary circumstances and subject to
subparagraph (C), such a waiver shall not be granted if the
petitioner has a record of violent criminal offenses against a
person or persons. |
