Immigration cracks down on foreigners’ fake marriages to stay in PH

Bureau of Immigration building. Photo from Bureau of Immmigration website

MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of Immigration has warned Indian nationals against entering into fraudulent marriages to acquire permanent residence in the Philippines.

Immigration Commissioner Siegfried Mison said the bureau summoned several Indians after discovering that their marriages to Filipinos had been arranged to evade immigration restrictions.

Mison said the bureau discovered that the marital status of Indian nationals supposedly married to Filipinos was not reflected on their passports.

As of December, 70,216 Indian nationals were recorded in the country, most of them engaged in money lending. This number is higher than the 60,415 in 2012.

Based on BI records, four Indians have been arrested for falsifying their applications for a five-year temporary resident visa (TRV) by submitting fraudulent documents.

“We discovered the suspects resorted to fake marriages and used it as a ploy to acquire residence visas,” he said.

Annotations in the passports of Indian applicants should reflect the name of their Filipino spouses to avoid fraudulent TRV applications.

“This measure is aimed at protecting our people from exploitation by schemers,” Mison said, adding that failure to comply with the requirements would mean cancellation of the TRV.

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