A Teacher Said She Married a Gaza Man for His Citizenship. The Feds Say ‘Expect to Be Prosecuted.’
On a June 16, 2026 activist webinar, Laura Pinho, 51, a dance teacher at Canoga Park Senior High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District, told the audience she had married a man in Gaza to help him obtain U.S. citizenship. “I have power as an American citizen,” she said. “How can I live in this world if I don’t make every effort to equalize the playing field?”
The marriage — to Salem S.E. Abu Amra, a businessman from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza — was performed April 5, 2026 over Zoom through Utah County’s online marriage system. A clip of her remarks, surfaced by the North American Values Institute and first reported by the New York Post, went viral within days.
Then came the federal response. Marrying to evade immigration law is a felony under 8 U.S.C. § 1325(c) — up to five years and $250,000 — and a USCIS spokesman told the Post that people who do it “should expect to be discovered and prosecuted.” As of publication, no charges have been filed against Pinho, no agency has confirmed an investigation, and LAUSD has said nothing at all.
- $179,103salaryPinho's 2024 LAUSD pay and benefits as a Canoga Park HS dance teacher — per the New York Post
- 5 yrs+ $250Kmaximum criminal penalty for marrying to evade immigration law under 8 U.S.C. § 1325(c)
- $12K+gofundmeraised since March 2025 for Salem Abu Amra's family of five in Gaza
- 250targetdenaturalization cases the DOJ set as its FY2026 goal — versus about 11 a year from 1990 to 2017 (CBS / DOJ)
The story does not rest on a leak, an anonymous tip, or a document someone pried loose. It rests on Pinho’s own words, spoken into a camera. On June 16, 2026, she appeared on a CODEPINK webinar titled “Challenging Zionism In Our Schools” — Workshop #2, “Strategies for Change in Your School” — and described what she had done. She teaches dance at Canoga Park Senior High and, according to the Post, serves as faculty adviser to the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine club and as a grant writer for a group called “A Just Peace.”
She framed the marriage as an act of solidarity. “I have power as an American citizen. I have a passport that I was just born with,” she said, “and how can I live in this world if I don’t make every effort to equalize the playing field on whatever way that I can.” She added a broader rationale: “Any action we take, doesn’t matter what the action is, it’s in the right direction if it’s for Palestinian rights and freedoms.” The webinar host, Marcy Winograd — a CODEPINK organizer, retired LAUSD teacher and two-time Democratic congressional candidate — congratulated her.
“I have power as an American citizen. I have a passport that I was just born with, and how can I live in this world if I don't make every effort to equalize the playing field on whatever way that I can.”
Laura Pinho · CODEPINK webinar, June 16, 2026
The full webinar remains publicly posted by CODEPINK. We embed it here as the primary source so readers can hear the remarks in full context rather than take a characterization on faith. What Pinho intended by “equalize the playing field” — and whether she understood the legal line she may have described crossing — is exactly the question the rest of this piece works through.
The mechanics are unusual, and they matter. According to the reporting, Pinho married Salem S.E. Abu Amra — described as a businessman from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and the primary caregiver for a family of five — on April 5, 2026. The ceremony was conducted remotely over Zoom through Utah County’s online marriage system, a service that has drawn national attention for allowing couples to be legally wed by video from anywhere in the world. Pinho and Abu Amra were, by all accounts, in different hemispheres when it happened.
There is a personal wrinkle. The Post reports that Pinho has a longtime domestic partner, Derek J. Reid, 51, with whom she shares a five-year-old child. Reid told the paper the two never married, are separated, and still share an address. Separately, a GoFundMe launched in March 2025 to support Abu Amra’s family in Gaza had raised more than $12,000. None of these facts, on their own, establishes a crime — but taken together they are the raw material a federal investigator would examine to test whether a marriage was entered into to evade immigration law rather than to build a life together.
The federal statute is not ambiguous about the conduct Pinho appeared to describe. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1325(c), “any individual who knowingly enters into a marriage for the purpose of evading any provision of the immigration laws” can be imprisoned for up to five years, fined up to $250,000, or both. It is one of the more serious immigration-fraud offenses on the books. Marrying a foreign national is entirely legal; marrying one for the purpose of conferring an immigration benefit is the line the statute draws.
Asked about the case, USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler, the agency’s chief of public affairs, delivered a blunt warning through a statement to the New York Post: “These individuals should expect to be discovered and prosecuted for this illegal activity.” It was a general statement of enforcement posture, not an announcement of a specific case — but its timing, in the days after Pinho’s video spread, left little doubt about the subject.
My advice to people generally is to stop admitting to crimes on video. Marriage fraud is illegal.
Immigration lawyers who reviewed the remarks for the Post said the on-camera admission is what makes the situation legally precarious. Michael Wildes, an immigration attorney, former federal prosecutor and mayor of Englewood, New Jersey, put it starkly: “She can be prosecuted criminally, brought up on federal conspiracy charges… The fact that somebody would be foolish enough to say they actually did it makes it actionable for the federal government to investigate.” USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow had earlier framed the agency’s posture broadly, vowing an “all-out war on immigration fraud.” None of that is a charge. It is a description of legal risk — and, so far, only a risk.
“The fact that somebody would be foolish enough to say they actually did it makes it actionable for the federal government to investigate.”
Michael Wildes · immigration attorney and former federal prosecutor, to the New York Post
A federal warning only matters if the government follows through, and the recent record shows an agency that has been. In February 2026, USCIS announced it had assisted an investigation that produced 11 indictments in a marriage-fraud conspiracy. In April 2025, the agency said it had helped ICE dismantle a nationwide marriage-fraud operation. A separate ICE operation led to four people being charged in a conspiracy to commit visa and marriage fraud. And in Minnesota, a sprawling immigration bust uncovered sham marriages alongside elder exploitation and fake death certificates. Marriage fraud is not a dormant statute; it is an active enforcement priority.
The pressure extends past marriage fraud into the broader question of who keeps citizenship once obtained. CBS News reported that the Justice Department set a target of roughly 250 denaturalization cases for fiscal 2026 — a steep climb from an average of about 11 a year between 1990 and 2017 — and moved to strip citizenship from 17 naturalized sex offenders and fraudsters in a single action. That posture flows directly from the top.
We will denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any foreign national who is a public charge, a security risk, or non-compatible with Western civilization.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Truth Social · Thanksgiving 2025, as reported by CBS News and Newsweek
We are carrying out the largest deportation operation in American history — and everyone who gamed our immigration system to get here will be found.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Truth Social · paraphrasing Trump's repeated public pledges of 'the largest deportation operation in American history' — not a single verbatim post
Hey @DHSgov, I would like to report marriage fraud. This LA teacher went on video to say she married a man in Gaza to get him U.S. citizenship.
One institution has been conspicuously quiet: the school district that employs Pinho and pays her, per the Post, $179,103 in salary and benefits. Multiple outlets reported that LAUSD declined to comment on whether it was reviewing the matter, and Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has not addressed it publicly. A July 2 CityWatch LA op-ed pressed the district directly, arguing that “LAUSD must answer” for what it called political indoctrination in the classroom and demanding an accounting of Pinho’s conduct as a faculty adviser.
This teacher is just an extreme symptom of a much larger problem inside our public schools. She said it herself, on camera.
The silence extends up the chain. Neither the office of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) nor that of California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has issued any public comment on the case, and the Department of Homeland Security declined to say whether an investigation is underway. That leaves a district employee’s recorded statement hanging in public view while every layer of government responsible for schools in the city stays mum.
Mayor: Karen Bass (D) — no public comment.
Governor: Gavin Newsom (D) — no public comment.
Schools: Los Angeles Unified School District, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho — declined to comment; no announced review.
Federal: USCIS issued a general prosecution warning; DHS declined to confirm any investigation.
It is worth being precise about the state of play, because the online reaction has raced far ahead of it. Pinho has not been charged with anything. No agency has confirmed that she is under investigation; NewsNation reported explicitly that no investigation had been confirmed. DHS declined to comment. Everything alleged about her intent comes from her own public statements and from commentators’ interpretation of them — not from a charging document, because there is none.
Some of that interpretation has gone well beyond the record. One commentator, Elon Fischberger, asserted on X that Abu Amra “is ALSO a radical jihadist” and demanded DHS act. That is an unverified claim by a private individual, and Civic Intelligence does not adopt it; we note it only to be transparent about the charged environment around this story. Abu Amra has not been charged with or accused of any crime by any authority, and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence — as is Pinho.
A publicly employed Los Angeles teacher told a webinar audience she married a man in Gaza to secure him U.S. citizenship and to “equalize the playing field.” The statement is on video, in her own voice.
Marrying to evade immigration law is a federal felony carrying up to five years and $250,000, and USCIS says people who do it “should expect to be discovered and prosecuted.” The agency has a live record of marriage-fraud prosecutions to back the warning.
But warnings are not charges. As of July 4, 2026, no case has been filed, no investigation has been confirmed, and LAUSD has said nothing. What exists so far is a recorded admission, a pointed federal statement, and an institutional silence — and readers are entitled to all three facts, cleanly separated.
