Sanctuary State CT Certifies Hundreds of Sham Immigrant Marriages

Every Connecticut government official who enabled this gigantic fraud should be federally prosecuted.

It’s one thing for CT government officials to make a mess of their own state, but another to wreck our country by operating a sham marriage mill for immigrants.

Patch Media: Arrested Pol Builds Marriage Biz

One recent day, for instance, [Wanda] Geter-Pataky conducted seven such marriages in New Haven City Hall. All seven involved an Indian-born spouse and an American-born spouse. None came from New Haven, according to their marriage licenses. They claimed they live in Houston, Waterbury, Queens, the Bronx, Long Island, Chesapeake, Virginia.

The nuptial-seekers mirrored similar groups showing up in city halls throughout the state: Couples, mostly with one spouse from India or sometimes other nations, looking to marry an American allegedly from another state. …

Clipboard in hand, Geter-Pataky guided a couple at a time into the Office of the Registrar of Vital Statistics on New Haven City Hall’s first floor to fill out their license applications. She steered them to the elevator up to the second floor to marry them in the atrium outside the mayor’s office. Then on to another couple.

As Geter-Pataky accompanied one of the spouses through the hallway, the spouse was asked if she was being paid, as rumored, to engage in the marriage.

“Tell him no,” Geter-Pataky advised the woman.

“No, I’m not,” the woman then replied.

“This is a reporter,” Geter-Pataky then informed men and women scattered on benches and in the hallway outside the first-floor registrar’s office, directing them not to answer questions. A man working in tandem with Geter-Pataky took out his phone and began recording this reporter while ordering him to stop taking photos and to leave the City Hall building. …

Over the month leading up to Oct. 15, Geter-Pataky served as justice of the peace in 114 marriages at New Haven City Hall… Most of the marriages included one spouse from abroad: 79 involved a spouse from India, another 36 from other nations ranging from Georgia (nine) and Tajikistan (four) to Turkey, Russia, Egypt and Jamaica (two apiece).

[New Haven’s previous registrar] Patricia Clark notified the federal government of her suspicions about the honesty of those marriages. Clark resigned from her job after being placed on leave pending an investigation finding that she violated a city policy forbidding officials from reporting suspicions about immigration to federal authorities….

Note that New Haven’s one honest government employee got FIRED for violating the state’s sanctuary state policies, requiring her to disobey federal law.   

The number of such marriages has only increased since Clark’s departure. Several justices of the peace told the Independent that marriage brokers have repeatedly contacted them to conduct these unions, offering a minimum of $100 for the work — which, if Geter-Pataky collects that rate, would have earned her over $11,000 in just that one-month period.

[Justice of the peace] Matt Fantastic …began receiving repeated text requests in late 2022 from people arranging marriages between Indian immigrants and younger Black or Latina American women.

Fantastic agreed to perform between 30 and 40 such marriages at City Hall in the subsequent months. Fantastic was paid between $100 and $300 per ceremony.

The marriages seemed suspicious, with no signs of a genuine bond, Fantastic said: The spouses would neither arrive nor leave together. They would almost never kiss. Many would avoid talking or looking at one another as much as possible.

But Fantastic didn’t ask questions or notify immigration authorities because that’s not the job of the justice of the peace according to government guidelines. Meanwhile, Fantastic, a local musician, began encountering women at clubs who reported being offered thousands of dollars by arrangers to “marry Indian dudes.” …

Fantastic has stopped responding to those requests from “arrangers”….

Why is Geter-Pataky on paid leave, anyway?

Bridgeport put her on leave after she was caught on surveillance video a second time allegedly illegally carting a bucket of harvested absentee ballots for a mayoral election, which a judge subsequently ordered re-run twice as a result. The state has arrested Geter-Pataky and charged her with four felony offenses in connection with that incident; that case is currently pending.

Geter-Pataky also serves as vice-chair of Bridgeport’s Democratic Party.