Opinion | The Passport Bros and the Fragility of Control

Sometimes, when you listen to the loudest voices on the internet, you don’t hear strength at all. Discussions about passport bros and control in relationships often reveal fear dressed up as swagger. You hear anxiety wrapped in the language of conquest. And that is what you hear when you listen to the so-called passport bros.

The term refers to men—mostly American, mostly disenchanted—who fly abroad to seek wives they describe as “more traditional.” They say Western women are too modern, too independent, too “infected” by feminism, which ties into their views on control in relationships. They paint marriage as a marketplace, women as prizes, and themselves as savvy consumers shopping for a better deal, reflecting deeply on passport bros seeking control through relationships.

But behind the bravado there’s a sadness. If you must board a plane to find a woman who will defer to you, perhaps the problem isn’t women. Perhaps the problem is you, especially if your concept of control in relationships relies on such drastic measures.

A recent video, making the rounds in this subculture, says it all. Its author, a YouTuber with a sizable following, hailed a new immigration policy—quietly implemented under Donald Trump—as the ultimate “weapon” for men in relationships. This belief that passport bros can exert control in relationships this way is quite revealing. Marriage to an American no longer guarantees permanent residency. In his telling, this is a game-changer: no more risk that a foreign bride will come to the U.S., “catch feminism,” file for divorce, and take half of what you own. Now, he gloats, disobedience can mean deportation.

This is not the language of love. It is the language of hostage-taking and it exemplifies the twisted view of passport bros on control in relationships.

The video doesn’t speak of affection, or companionship, or family. It speaks of leverage, which is central to how passport bros understand control in their relationships. Wives are probationers, marriage is parole, and the U.S. government becomes a warden keeping women in line. He even calls a visa an “accountability tool.” Imagine saying that about your spouse. Imagine believing it.

It all reveals something deeper: these men aren’t secure in their masculinity. They don’t trust they can build relationships on respect, so they outsource trust to immigration law. They want a world where marriage feels safe because women have no power to leave, a perspective strongly linked to the narrative of passport bros and control in relationships.

But here’s the irony: the very thing they claim to want—peace, respect, a good partner, a legacy—cannot exist in a relationship built on coercion. If love only feels possible when your wife has no rights, it isn’t love at all. It’s fear, intimately tied to the need for control that passport bros seek in their relationships.

And fear is what animates so much of this movement. Fear of women’s autonomy, fear of change, fear of no longer being in control. They rail against feminism as if it were a virus, but what they are really describing is their own insecurity.

America has many problems. Marriage has many challenges. But turning women into probationers with a wedding ring is not a solution. It is a retreat. A retreat from equality, from trust, from confidence in oneself.

If the best you can do is weaponize immigration law to keep your wife obedient, perhaps you are not ready for marriage. Perhaps you are not ready for love, especially if your concept of love involves control in relationships like those valued by passport bros.