Strut into the limelight, pose for the cameras, use the attention. The fellowship clothes me in sparkling opportunities and grooms me with good publicity. Frankly I prefer backstage. But I do want an audience for the story of marriage and international migration. Publicity shapes policy and in the news the failures abound: discontented middle-age men who seek and destroy young foreign women; unscrupulous women who marry for a green card and then disappear; miserable marriages of countless variations. A variety of regulations seek to handle the fiascoes. Yet the successful matching of ethnic hues, national fabrics, and cultural patterns also deserves attention. At the Fulbright orientation I shared EU spouse status with several of the score of participants. Our presence speaks silently for continuing spousal preference and family reunification. In a global world linking lands and hands fosters understanding. 
Congrats on the FSU Banner! I’m enjoying traveling vicariously through your blog posts. Say “Hi!” to Franz!
Is it always unscrupulous to marry for a green card and then disappear? I guess it is if the spouse thought the marriage was for life. If not, I don’t see the unscrupulousness–seems like good strategy.
My initial post referred to the abandonment version–left after the altar. You raise an important question: to what extent should individual desires trump societal rules? Or another possibility, should people have the right to move? Would there be any limits on this? More on this another time. . .