Bill Would Regulate Mail-Order Bride Business

Motivated by the murder of a mail-order bride, members of Congress are drafting a bill that would enable foreign women seeking American husbands to learn the criminal background of men courting them through matchmaking agencies.

The legislation, expected to be introduced this month in the House and Senate, represents the most serious effort yet to impose federal oversight over a loosely regulated, Internet-based industry.

The measure’s prime sponsors are Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Rick Larsen, both Democrats from Washington state -- where Anastasia King, 20, a mail-order bride from Kyrgyzstan, was killed in September 2000.

Her husband, Indle King Jr., was convicted last year of first-degree murder. He had divorced a previous foreign bride and was seeking a third before the killing.

Larsen anticipates bipartisan support for the measure, though he is unsure how matchmaking services will respond.

“Cases like Anastasia King’s have given the mail-order bride industry a bad name,” he said. “I’d think they would support any steps to ensure they’re looked at more favorably.”

The legislation would require international marriage brokers to ask clients about any criminal record, including protective orders issued because of domestic violence allegations. Indle King’s first wife had obtained a protective order against him in 1995.

The client’s information would be provided to women contemplating marriage with him. If the man then applied for a U.S. visa for a prospective bride, he would undergo a criminal background check by federal officials.

No firm statistics exist on the extent of abuse suffered by mail-order brides, or even the numbers of such women. In the most recent attempt to quantify the industry, immigration officials said in 1999 that more than 200 international matchmaking services operated in the United States, arranging 4,000 to 6,000 marriages annually between American men and foreign women, mostly from the Philippines and former Soviet Union.

Leslye Orloff, director of the NOW Legal Defense Fund’s Immigrant Women’s Project, said some mail-order marriages work out well, but others are “a recipe for disaster” because the man is seeking a submissive wife.

“The industry markets stereotypes on both sides,” Orloff said. “They market to the women the image of wealthy American men and a better life. They market to the American men the image of docile women they can control.”

Advocates for immigrant women’s rights acknowledge that statistics are scarce on abuse of mail-order brides, but believe the problem is growing.