Tourist Visa - Name Change Problem

Hi To All,

My wife's mother(Philippine Resident) was given a tourist visa in 1998(10 yrs pass), US Embassy Nicaragua, she was working in Nicaragua that time. The visa expired this month. She wanted to reapply for a new tourist visa in the near future.

The problem is, she used her husbands last name when she applied for the visa WITHOUT a marriage certificate and NOT legally married. I don't know why she was approved and given a visa that time.

can she use her birth name on her new visa application even if she has a record in the embassy using her husbands last name? will it be a problem? is this a case of perjury or misrepresentation?

thanks and god bless,

Udex

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First question: are you certain this was a tourist visa ????

Those are normally only valid for very short periods of time, such as three months or six months.

For it to be valid for ten years ... I suspect she 1) has a visa other than a tourist visa or 2) she has overstayed her original tourist visa by many years.

I could be wrong ...


As far as using the surname of someone she was not married to ... that is quite serious. It is fraud, and the U.S. government will not be very amused if there is evidence.

To renew the visa under another name, she would need documents that show why/how her name changed.

I think there is much more to this story than you have told us.


Anyway.

Topic moved to the US immigration forum.

the Admin

Administrator wrote:First question: are you certain this was a tourist visa ????
Those are normally only valid for very short periods of time, such as three months or six months.

Tourist visas are normally valid for 10 years. This doesn't mean that the person can stay in the US for 10 years, only that for the following 10 years they can re-use the same visa whenever they try to enter the US.

Administrator wrote:As far as using the surname of someone she was not married to ... that is quite serious. It is fraud, and the U.S. government will not be very amused if there is evidence.

Not necessarily. In the UK you can call yourself whatever you want without a formal deed poll. You can even get a UK passport in that new name. Other countries have different rules. I don't think it was fraud unless she used fake documents. Which prompts the question: how did she get a passport with the surname of a man she wasn't married to? (You can do that in the UK, but not in many other countries).