Support centre critical of immigration process

Amid reports in relation to ‘sham marriages’ this week, the Clare Immigrant Support Centre has acknowledged that some people do so because all other avenues are blocked to them.

However, the immigrant support centre criticised the current immigration processes in relation to marriage because it resulted in legitimate couples suffering “unnecessary hardship” as a result.
Orla Ní Éilí, of the Ennis-based organisation, said that she has dealt with quite a number of couples where one of the partners are non-EU citizens and said that it was the “immigration processes that worked against them”.
“I have certainly dealt with non-EU and EU couples in Clare who want to get married and have been together for years and they had to go through backward loops and all sorts trying to get regularised.
“There are some measures there now but it was impossible before to regularise their situations and the process was working against them. There was great and unnecessary hardship caused to one such family in terms of settling down and building their lives and setting up a family structure in Ireland.
“That was a case where it was a non-Irish person and someone from outside the EU who wanted to get married. We have also had a couple of cases where one person was Irish and there were still complications. The processes have been regularised and this has made life easier in the last year,” she said.
However, Ms Ní Éilí stressed that she could not condone any type of exploitation of persons for the purpose of citizenship.
“Any exploitation or abuse element within marriage structures where it’s happening and outside forces are making it happen, some of it has terrible ramifications and we would want to make sure there are some measures in place to look out for welfare of vulnerable persons.
“But the other aspect is that there are some people who probably end up going down this route because all other routes have been blocked for them, even though they have been here quite a few years.
“Sometimes, aspects of their lives will go astray here and they resort to this because other measures were cut off that should have been open to them.
“It may be something simple like they had come here fully documented and something happened in their work life that left them vulnerable. They may then resort to paying someone to get married to. Let’s be clear – as other Irish have done in other countries,” she continued.
Ms Ní Éilí expressed some concern regarding The Immigration and Residency Bill, which is due to come before the Dáil for consideration at the next sessions.
“What the Immigration and Residency Bill was originally planning to do would cause great hardship to people getting married, for no good reason, and all to tackle a small issue that some people were getting married for immigration reasons rather than love and setting up family,” she outlined.
She said that it was hoped certain amendments would be made to the Bill to help the process for those seeking to wed for legitimate purposes.
“The bottom line in introducing any measures trying to correct suspect marriages, that you must be careful that the instrument you bring in doesn’t penalise a whole load of people who will then have difficulty in getting on with their lives,” she concluded.
A spokesperson for the gardaí said that there are currently no investigations into  sham marriages in County Clare and that the gardaí are not aware of it being an issue here.