Immigration Corner | Should I include my dad’s name on my visa application?

Dear Mrs Walker-Huntington,

The last time I applied for a United States (US) visitor’s visa, the officer asked me why I did not let my dad file for me, after which he denied me a visa and said I should let my dad file for me.

My dad is living in the United States and, knowing that I needed a US address to place on the visa application form, I used his address. Now he is saying that he doesn’t know if I am really his child. He also said he didn’t have anything to file for anyone because he’s a green card holder, and a lot of other nonsense.

What I’d like to know is this. If I am to reapply for a visitor’s visa, should I still include his name or other immediate relatives on the application?

FJ

Dear FJ,

Your situation is unfortunate. Whenever anyone applies for a non-immigrant (in this case visitor’s visa) there is a presumption that the applicant wants to migrate. When you have a relative who could petition for you to change your status in America, that presumption increases. We have seen consular officers jump to the conclusion that because an applicant has a relative in America, they want to live in America and that they are going to ‘run off’. In your situation, you would not be able to adjust your status in America if you entered with a visitor’s visa and your father filed for you.

On the application for the visitor’s visa, you must give accurate information and that information should remain consistent with all applications. In your case, if your father does not think he is your father, you should both do DNA testing to clarify this – that is a major situation. You can seek companies online that would be able to conduct the DNA test with you both in different countries. If he is not your father, you can truthfully not include him in your future visa applications and take the results with you to your interview to prove that, in fact, the person you thought was your father is not.

However, if he is your father, you must include him in the visa application and provide evidence to the consular officer that you have significant ties to Jamaica that you do not wish to leave, and therefore the improbability of your ‘running off’ if allowed to visit America.

For the record, as a green card holder, your father could petition for his unmarried, adult daughter if he so chose. Also, if he does not earn enough to show on the Affidavit of Support (AOS) that he could financially support you, the process allows for a joint sponsor to do a second AOS to show the United States that you would not become a public charge if allowed to migrate.

Dahlia A. Walker-Huntington, Esq, is a Jamaican-American attorney who practises immigration law in the United States; and family, criminal and international law in Florida. She is a diversity and inclusion consultant, mediator, and former special magistrate and hearing officer in Broward County, Florida. info@walkerhuntington.co m