A Connecticut bureaucrat is being accused of running an immigrant marriage scam to push Joe Biden’s migrants into legal status before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. And she is not the only one.
Wanda Geter-Pataky, who is a justice of the peace at New Haven City Hall, has allegedly been caught officiating at a string of controversial weddings that some assume are meant to fraudulently push migrants into legal status.
She allegedly officiated more than 100 of these marriages a month during the Biden regime, according to the CT Mirror.
The Mirror added that many of these marriages are between migrants and American citizens who do not even live in her state. Recently, she married couples from Texas, New York, and Virginia, the news group said.
WVIT-TV reports discovering 114 licenses from marriages Geter-Pataky performed between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15.
Geter-Pataky is no stranger to controversy. She is the same woman who was fired from her government job in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for being involved in suspicious ballot activity during the city’s mayoral contest in 2023.
Geter-Pataky was eventually charged with tampering with a witness, misrepresenting eligibility requirements for voting by absentee ballot, and failure to sign as assister on an absentee ballot. She is expected to have a jury trial on the charges starting next month.
State Sen. Stephen Harding (R) is calling for an investigation into the possibly sham marriages.
“We’re simply asking for the attorney general’s office to do what they do in many cases and investigate whether there’s illegal activity occurring,” Harding said.
Still, the state’s Democrat Attorney General, William Tong, waived off involving his office in any investigation of the marriages saying that if there were any violations occurring, they would be violations of federal immigration laws, not state laws.
The issue is starting to become a political football. Democrat Mayor Justin Elicker told the media that they are putting wait times of two days on marriages at city hall, but he also insisted that “We’re not the love police, we’re not trying to determine if they’re actually in love, if it’s a legitimate marriage or if there’s something else going on.”
The possibly sham marriages are not isolated only to Geter-Pataky’s jurisdiction. These marriages seem to be happening all across the state.
The CT Mirror noted that there are so many of these marriages that the work load of processing paper work is taking city employees away from other duties. And officials are also being called on to perform these marriages by what CT Mirror calls “marriage brokers” who offer officials payoffs of at least $100 per marriage to perform the unions.
Many of these brokers are from India and are arranging for Indian men to “marry” American women who are often economically lower class. And when officials quiz the couple on how they met, their replies are often vague and unconvincing.
“The U.S. citizen spouse was said to be in a part-time or unskilled job and allegedly ineligible to sponsor the intending immigrant. When asked about this, the caller would mention an arranged sponsor,” New Haven immigration attorney Damjan Denoble told the media. “The story of how the couple met was vague, often described as ‘talking outside of the U.S. citizen’s workplace.’ They claimed to be in love and even living together, yet could provide no details on how they came to love one another.”
Several of these cities are looking into ways to cut down on these potentially sham marriages. Methods include waiting periods and pre-scheduled times for city officials to conduct marriages instead of simply allowing walk-in services.
New Haven Health Director Maritza Bond acknowledged that the situation has gotten out of hand.
“We are concerned,” Bond said of the large number of out-of-staters coming in to get married. “We want to make sure we’re a welcoming city. We also don’t support fraud, if there is fraud here.” But Bond added, “we are not police officers. This is not our role.”
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