Change of nationality

[Soso969 0]

My husbands mother is British his father is Kuwaiti.

His mother ran away from Kuwait with her kids when they were young and they were raised in the UK.

We travelled to Florida 6 years ago via ESTA as we have British passport.

Our ESTA is now of course expired.

Since this time my husband gained a relationship with his father and he has now got his Kuwaiti passport, nationality and we are permanently living in Kuwait.

My husband has a successful job in a oil company, he is manager and has a good salary.

We are registered for land and will be building our house here soon. We are currently renting a 3 bedroom apartment.

Our 3 children are in private school here. So we have very strong ties here.

We would like to take our 3 children to Disney World Florida for 3 weeks, staying in a villa & visiting the all the parks.

However last time we entered Florida my husband entered with his British passport with ESTA. But this time he will have to apply for a visa as he is now a Kuwaiti Citizen.

His name on his British passport is different to his name now on his Kuwaiti passport.

He has discarded his British Passport as it is not allowed to have 2 passports in Kuwait. Once he decided to live here there is no use for his British Passport.

His Kuwaiti passport has a different name as here it is law that you take your fathers names.

I want to know if this change in circumstances will effect the result of his visa application?

It is a whole new application as ESTA was 6 years ago. This time he needs a Visa.

Many thanks for your advice.

[canadian_wife 1,785]

It might. As you can imagine, a Kuwaiti citizen may have a tougher time getting a visa than a British citizen - simply from the fact a British citizen doesn't need a visa.

Your ties sound substantial but I doubt it will be easy as I am sure he'll need to declare the previous names used and the new names which may result in additional background checks.

good luck

[Soso969 0]

Thank you for your reply. Yes he will of course have to declare that he travelled before to USA on a British passport via ESTA and his British passport was in different name to his now Kuwaiti passport.

I haven't heard that it's difficult for a Kuwaiti to get a tourist visa though. Kuwait and USA generally have a good relationship and there are a huge amount of Kuwaitis that travel to USA all the time for tourists reasons and also as students and medical.

Fingers crossed that it won't be a difficult process.

[Penguin_ie 5,984]

I don;t think the name change will be an issue, as it was required by law; you might writ a cover letter explaining that, to be on the safe side, when you send in the app.

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

It may slow the approval up just a bit, a lot of women have different names through life , not always different passports. Make sure to fully disclose it, it might even help to have something that shows both parents nationalities on it ( does the long birth certificate ?) and explain that as an adult he has chosen to align with his parental nationality.