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two weeks, he came to New Jersey where he
b
egan living with his
cousin. In total, he lived with his wife those two days and no
more.
Mr. Patel testified that he and her parents both tried
to persuade her to save the marriage. He testified that
sometimes his wife was very rude. Mr. Patel, however, did not
explain to this Court the reason why his wife decided that she no
longer wanted to be married to him.
Mr. Patel testified that he filed jointly with his wife
Federal Income Tax Returns for 1998, 1999, and 2000. The Court
would note it does not have 2000 returns.
Mr. Patel testified that he and his wife got divorced
in March of 2000. She has subsequently remarried and so has he.
He now has two United States citizen children.
Mr. Patel was asked why it might be that his ex-wife is
not here to testify on his behalf and he testified that it is
probably because her current husband does not want her to be
involved in the respondent's problem.
Mr. Patel testified that there were almost 1, 000 people
at his wedding in India and 600 or so at the reception.
Mr. Patel testified that he does not have any
documentation showing joint checking accounts or other joint
assets. He explained that his ex-wife, Deta, and he did not have
a lease together because she already was leasing the property in
Oregon when he arrived. He testified that he did not marry his
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(. .
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ex-wife for the green card, but he did acknowledge that his ex-
wife sent letters to Imigration in which she expressed her
belief that he did marry her simply for the green card.
Mr. Patel also testified on the question of voluntary
departure. It appears he is eligible for that relief.
The Court next heard from Arwin Patel. He is 50 years
old. He is the respondent's first cousin. He is a lawful
permanent resident. He came to the United States in 2008, and
lives in New Jersey. Arwin Patel testified that the respondent's
wedding was an arranged marriage, arranged by the parents. He
testified they were married in June of 1997, and it was either
the 27 or the 28. He testified that he attended the wedding and
there were about 150 people at the wedding. There was a dinner
party prior to that in the village where thousands of people
attended.
Mr. Arwin Patel testified that Deta probably had a
boyfriend and did not want to stay with the respondent. He
testified that Deta's parents were trying to save the marriage.
The Court next heard from Chetterland Patel. He is 38
years old. He is here on an H-1 visa. He has been in the United
States since 2002. He is the respondent's brother-in-law. He is
married to the respondent's sister. He lives in Edison, New
Jersey. He testified that he attended the wedding on June 28,
1997, in India. That is to say, of course, the wedding of the
respondent. He testified that it was an arranged marriage and
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there were about 500 people at the wedding.
The regulations at 8 C. F. R. Section 1216. S(e) (2) direct
the Imigration Judges in the consideration of these type of
waiver cases. The regulations specify that in considering
whether an alien entered into a qualifying marriage in good
faith, the Judge must look at a number of things including,
first, documentation relating to the degree to which the
financial assets and liabilities of the parties were combined.
Second, the documentation concerning the length of time during
which the parties cohabited after the marriage and after the
alien obtained permanent residence. We must also look at
evidence regarding birth of children during the marriage and we
must look at other evidence deemed pertinent. These items, of
course, are originally considered by the Director because the
Director of Citizenship and Imigration Service has original
jurisdiction and we as Imigration Judges then review the denials
of the District Director.
In the present case, there is no evidence of co-
mingling of assets because it is not alleged that there was any
co-mingling of assets. This Court does not have anything
reflecting a shared life together. Indeed, the marriage for all
practical purposes lasted two days. They only lived together for
two days. Remarkably enough, they seem to have joint tax returns
for two years even though they did not live together and
apparently did not have any comunication after the first two
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weeks that the respondent was in the United States. So the
things that we usually look for in these kinds of cases are
absent in this case. We look for things such as evidence of
utilities being used at the same address. It could be phone
bills. It could be cable television. It could be electricity,
things of that type. There is none of that here. We look for
evidence that the individuals shared credit cards or banking
accounts. There is no evidence of that here. We look for
evidence that car insurance, health insurance, life insurance
reflects the exis
i
ence of the husband and the wife in the
marriage either as beneficiaries or joint owners of the insurance
policy, but we, of course, have none of that here. We have no
leases. We have no evidence of property purchased together,
including real estate. There is really nothing here in terms of
this evidence of co-mingling of assets.
Moreover, in terms of birth of the children, well,
there were no children born of this marriage. So there is none
of that either. We have a remarkably scant documentary file in
this case and what that means is that Mr. Patel has to provide us
with very, very compelling, very persuasive testimony as to his
witnesses in order for him to win this case.
Probably the most important bit of evidence in support
of Mr. Patel's case is the evidence with regard to his marriage
ceremony and the number of people that were involved and the
elaborateness of that ceremony. That would seem to go to the
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question of authenticity of the marriage. It would appear that
at least one of the parties thought it was a real marriage if all
that expense and trouble was entered into for, for the sake of
the marriage. Of course, we can have a situation where an alien
respondent knows it is not a legitimate marriage, but the U. S.
citizen spouse bel ieves it is a legitimate marriage.
Alternatively, we could have a situation where both parties to
the marriage know it's fraudulent and, alternatively to that, is
the situation where both parties to the marriage know it is a
legitimate marriage.
With regard to the marriage ceremony, we have a few
photographs here, but that is about it. We also have the
testimony of two additional witnesses, two relatives of the
respondent that it was a large wedding, although the numbers do
not seem really to match together very well in terms of how many
people were actually at the wedding. The Court is not going to
make too much of that because most people, the Court believes,
are not very adept at trying to determine sizes of crowds and so
the Court is not going to make too much of that. Suffice it to
say, there may have been a large wedding here and to the extent
that we can believe that there was a large wedding, it may
provide evidence of bona fides of the marriage.
On the opposite side of the ledger, we have all of the
things that are absent here. We obviously do not have the
testimony of Deta Patel. We do not have anything from her other
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than a 2001 letter which says essentially nothing about her
marriage other than that she believes it was entered into in good
faith and that it was her fault that the marriage broke down.
But she is not here to testify and that is unfortunate because we
would have had, I am sure, questions for her about how it comes
to pass that she marries a man and then lives with him for two
days in the United States, and then not only does not want to see
him again, but does not even provide him with an explanation of
why it is that the marriage is falling apart. It is remarkable
in this case that throughout the testimony of Mr. Patel, he has
never ventured even a guess as to why it is that his wife decided
that she did not want to live with him any more. The Court finds
it remarkable that he does not apparently have the faintest idea
of what happened to his marriage. One would think someone would
have at least a curiosity that would demand some sort of answer
or at least some supposition, some hypothesis about what it was
that this woman was looking for that she did not get in this
marriage and why she would decide after two days that she had had
enough of Mr. Patel. But we did not get any of that.
One of our witnesses ventured forth the proposition
that she had a boyfriend, but where he got this information or
this supposition remains unexplained because Mr. Patel himself
never said anything about his wife having a boyfriend. So one
wonders whether the witness knows more about the respondent's
marriage than respondent himself does.
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Overall, the Court finds that the respondent's
testimony was not very compelling, nor was the testimony of the
two additional relative witnesses. It would have required very
long testimony, very detailed, very expository testimony to
overcome the dearth of information in documentary form in this
record. The Court finds that the respondent has not met that
burden of proof. All the things that we are told to look for in
the regulations we have looked for in this case and have been
unable to find and so the Court feels in this case that the
respondent has simply failed in his burden of proof.
The respondent has requested voluntary departure in the
alternative. That will be provided to him in the exercise of
discretion for the maximum period which is 60 days upon posting,
however, a $500 voluntary departure bond within the next five
business days.
The Court will enter the following orders.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED the respondent's application for
waiver under Section 216(c) (4) (B) of the Imigration and
Nationality Act is denied.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED the respondent's application for
voluntary departure is granted until June 15, 2009, upon,
however, the posting within the next five business days of a $500
voluntary departure bond. In the event the respondent fails to
post the bond or fails to leave the United States when required,
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the respondent shall be deported to India pursuant to the charge
in the charging document.
A 046 743 862 11
/EUG
r
Imigration Judge
April 14, 2009
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I
CERTIFICATE PAGE
I hereby certify that the attached proceeding
before EUGENE PUGLIESE in the matter of:
HIMANSHU PATEL
A 046 743 862
Newark, New Jersey
was held as herein appears, and that this is the original
transcript thereof for the file of the Executive Office for
Imigration Review.
Maria Kimball (Transcriber)
Deposition Services, Inc.
6245 Executive Boulevard
Rockville, Maryland 20852
(301) 881-3344
June 10. 2009
(Completion Date)
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