And the third is two years after the marriage, when the wife can seek permission to stay permanently.

(MUSIC)

FAITH LAPIDUS: Marriage broker David Knabel says he advertises women who went to college and have professional jobs. But he agrees that not all the companies in his industry work like that.

DAVID KNABEL: ”You can’t group all international marriage agencies into one piece, just like you can’t group all companies being all the same. I mean there’s a lot of agencies out there that specialize in third-world country brides, that are coming from poverty, uneducated, that kind of thing."

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Lawyer Heather Heiman says she sees only the bad side of the industry because she works with women who have been mistreated. She agrees that some brokered marriages work, but she says agencies sometimes create unrealistic expectations in men.

HEATHER HEIMAN: “For example they may market women on their websites as traditional or submissive or promote them as great investments."

She says, in her experience, the kind of men who use an international marriage broker may be looking for a kind of woman who does not exist anymore in America.

HEATHER HEIMAN: “One thing, unfortunately, that I think we have seen is some of them that are interested and partake of this industry are really, sort of, resisting the progress of women, I guess I would say. They’re looking, it seems to us, for a type of woman that existed in the forties and fifties and perhaps doesn’t conform with the typical type of woman you’d find today. And that’s again just something that raises a flag for us and that sometimes can be a cause for concern. These mismatched expectations can just lead to problems."