This isn’t a refugee story, but it does involve one of our favored refugee nationalities—an Ethiopian—who paid the now “fiancée” of Gov. John Kitzhaber $5000 more than a decade ago to marry him to gain US citizenship.
Just for your information, we have tens of thousands of Ethiopians now in the US through refugee resettlement. In fact the Director of the entire federal Office of Refugee Resettlement is Ethiopian Eskinder Negash. Additionally one of the nine major federal refugee contractors is the Ethiopian Community Development Council.
Earlier this year we reported on a huge marriage fraud bust in the African migrant go-to state of Maine, here.
Here is the juicy news from KATU.com (hat tip: Cathy):
PORTLAND, Ore. – In a stunning admission Thursday, Gov. John Kitzhaber’s fiancée Cylvia Hayes admitted to illegally marrying an Ethiopian immigrant in the late 1990s for money and so he could stay in the United States to get a college degree.
Hayes said she was paid about $5,000 and made the “bad decision” to marry the man during a “difficult and unstable period” of her life and that she was “associating with the wrong people” at the time.
[…..]
Hayes apologized to the people of Oregon and to the governor for her actions and said Kitzhaber did not know about the marriage until this Tuesday.
“I was ashamed and embarrassed; therefore, I did not share this information even with John once we met and started dating,” she said.
She also said she has retained a lawyer and is prepared to accept the consequences.
The Governor did not attend the Hayes press conference.
There is a lot more, read it all here. Hayes might not be prosecuted, but sources tell KATU that the Ethiopian scammer could be deported.
More Bloggers needed! Someone should write a blog focusing on scams being perpetrated by migrants on America. Heck, look at all the food stamp fraud (trafficking!) cases we have reported over the years. And, then there are the Medicaid fraud cases in addition to the phony marriages. There would be fresh news every day for you to report. You could have a blast!