Partner Avram Morell, a member of Pryor Cashman’s Immigration Group, spoke to Fox News for its December 19, 2015 article, “SoCal terror probe exposes marriage-for-visa racket.”

The article reports that the investigation of the San Bernardino attack has revealed at least two dubious marriages that expose loopholes in the immigration system and put national security at risk.

Federal authorities have charged Enrique Marquez with marriage fraud for his union with Mariya Chernykh, a Russian woman whose sister, Tatiana Chernykh, married the brother of terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook after first gaining U.S. residence through an earlier marriage.

Farook’s own wife, Tashfeen Malik, who was killed along with Farook following the San Bernardino shooting, allegedly married her way into the U.S. under suspicious circumstances, taking advantage of lax screening to immigrate on a K-1 visa.

Tatiana Chernykh and her husband were named as witnesses on the marriage certificate, and Syed Raheel Farook also signed ensuing citizenship documents vouching that Marquez had the financial means to support his new spouse.  Knowledge of someone else’s allegedly fraudulent marriage does not necessarily result in any civil or criminal liability on those who advocated for its legitimacy. Morell told Fox News that while marriage fraud carries severe immigration penalties like revocation and deportation, he was not aware of anything under immigration law that impacts witnesses.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.