A brother and sister in Waterloo have been charged with organizing a sham marriage to prevent immigration officials from deporting the former from the US. Last week, a grand jury indictment was filed alleging that 27-year-old Selmir Salkanovic, a citizen of Bosnia, overstayed his tourist visa last year and that he and his sister, Selena Dedic, enlisted an American to marry him to allow him to stay in the US.
The indictment charges both siblings with conspiracy to commit marriage fraud and the former with marriage fraud. US Marshals Service agents arrested the two on Thursday, with the pair pleading not guilty in their first appearance in Cedar Rapids’ US District Court later on the same day.
The trial is currently set for December. While Dedic was released pending trial, Salkanovic remains in Cedar Rapids’ Linn County Jail custody, also subject to an immigration detainer. According to court records, Dedic paid an American woman money and a Ford Taurus in a $5,000 deal to get her to marry her brother and go through interviews with immigration officials so that Salkanovic could stay in the US.
The marriage was never consummated and the ‘couple’ never lived together, according to the indictment. Under federal law, immigrants who marry US citizens receive conditional residency status, which, after two years is then able to be upgraded to permanent residency, and after another five years, to full US citizenship.