The exploitation that you are describing is clearly wrong, even if the unfair circumstances giving rise to the misconduct are also morally wrong. But these are cases where the authorities have already reviewed the evidence and decided that an applicant qualifies for permanent residency; it is not clear why they would review their decisions on the word of a third party who does not have independent access to the facts.
The self-petition provision you refer to has a compelling rationale. Non-citizens who are victims of domestic violence or cruelty can be especially vulnerable: they may not know English or be unfamiliar with US laws, and they may fear deportation if they seek help. But the authorities are well aware that the system can be abused. Although the number of petitions has increased significantly in recent years, the number has also been identified as potentially fraudulent. The Government Accountability Office, which conducts audits and evaluations for Congress, has asked the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to develop an anti-fraud strategy, and the agency has committed to doing so. The aim is to try to protect victims of abuse without encouraging wrongful claims against the innocent – not an easy thing to calibrate. The wheels of bureaucracy grind slowly, but they do.
What you can do is make sure your correspondents seek help from law enforcement if they come under attack. Nothing prevents the authorities from investigating whether the victims themselves can provide evidence of their abuse.
I wrote a book and self-published it through Amazon, which allows the author to mask that fact by crediting a fake publisher on the title page. My first question is whether it is ethical to use a fake publisher’s ID. My second concerns the following incident. At a local bookstore, I inquired if I could leave some copies of my book on consignment. The owner agreed. When I left, he asked who my publisher was. Knowing that some bookstores don’t like to sell self-published books, I called my fake publisher. Was my answer ethical? Name withheld
Huge numbers self-published books appear every year, often emblazoned with the names of fanciful presses. The practice is not really worrying. If you had chosen a vain publisher instead, they would have adorned your book with a grand name that, while referring to a genuine commercial enterprise, would have been no more or less misleading. It’s easy to imagine made-up names that would be deliberately misleading: Random Home, Farrah Strauss. But you don’t appropriate the cachet of an existing publishing house.
As for your exchange with the bookstore owner, if he had typed your supposed publisher into a search engine (as I just did), he would have immediately seen that it wasn’t a real entity. Either way, self-published authors will be the ones submitting books on their own behalf. However, the fact that you hoped to mislead him puts you on the wrong track. He may not see a big difference between Kindle Direct Publishing, vanity presses, and publishers so obscure that they never appeared on his inventory lists. But even if he hadn’t been seriously deceived, he would have reason to wonder if you’re honest. A personal inventory may be in order.
Kwame Anthony Appiah teaches philosophy at NYU. His books include Cosmopolitanism, The Honor Code, and The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity. Ask a question: email ethicists.; or email The Ethicist, DailyExpertNews Magazine, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018. (Include a daytime phone number.)
