Can you guess the minimum age for someone in the U.S. to petition for a foreign spouse or fiancé(e)? Or for someone to be brought to the U.S. on a spousal or fiancé(e) visa?
It’s zero. The federal government does not specify any minimum age for such petitions.
As a result, we at Unchained have seen girls under 18 forced to marry just so their overseas “husbands” can get U.S. visas. We also have seen girls brought to the U.S., legally, as child brides. Either way, the girls typically are raped and beaten within their “marriage” and not allowed to finish their education. All with the federal government’s approval.
Thanks to the AHA Foundation, which flagged this dangerous loophole and demanded data on the number of children impacted, we now know that between 2007 and 2017, more than 8,600 approved spousal/fiancé(e) visa petitions involved a child. In 95 percent of those cases, the child was a girl.
We at Unchained lead the growing national movement to end child marriage in the U.S. Along with the National Coalition to End Child Marriage that we co-convened with Equality Now, we will continue to push for a minimum marriage age of 18 in every U.S. state and at the federal level. Please continue to support us as we do so.
