Applying For
H4 Visa
I am here to
share my story of entering in United States on H4 Visa and the complications I
faced throughout the stay in absence of a surname.
Few months
after I got married to a guy who is settled in USA, we started my H4 visa
process in order to get me to USA as well. During the initial stage,
I started with tons of paper work and form fillings which included getting a
copy of all my IDs and certifications, filling up of DS-160 and getting
signed letters ready from my husband's employer, as off course they were
sponsoring my H4/dependent visa.
Some of the
documents as I remember are:
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And copy of
some of my husband’s documents:
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While I was
in the process of filling up DS-160, the form made it mandatory to print a
second name without which I was not able to proceed. In order to get going, I had
to enter a second name but I couldn’t just enter any second name as that would
invite further problems as all of my other documents i.e. passport, DL, adhar
card don’t have a surname. This delayed the whole process and after a lot of
googling and checking with other consultants and my husband’s employer, we
ended up with a work around.
I made my
name as surname and in the place of first name I had put FNU (First Name Unknown).
E.g. On
passport
First name: ABC
Last name: Blank
On DS-160
First name: FNU
Last name: ABC
I did heard
from some people about LNU which is
Last Name Unknown, which works the same way, it’s just that instead of using your
first name as surname, LNU is made surname and first name remains the same.
That way I
was able to take the process further.
Once I was
done with all the documentation, I got 2 appointments made by my husband’s
employer for visa interview:
1. Ofc Appointment
1. Ofc Appointment
It was scheduled at:
S - 1 American Plaza, (Hotel Eros
Managed by Hilton),
International Trade Tower,
Nehru Place, New Delhi, 110019
And this was a real quick one, they simply clicked a photograph for visa
and took finger prints and checked my passport, appointment letter and DS-160
and called that a day.
2. Consular
appointment
It was the real visa interview appointment and was scheduled at:
U.S. Embassy Shantipath
Chanakya Puri
Delhi, 110021
All went well and the visa lady said, “You don’t seem to be a threat to our
country & we are more than happy to welcome you to United Sates”.
In a week’s time, I received my stamped visa through post. It had my
first name as FNU and last name as my actual “first name”. Feww, a lot of
messing around with a name that has been given to me since birth. It’s quite
confusing and off course irritating to be called as first name unknown. People
actually pronounced it Fnu as if it’s a name and some of them asked it’s
meaning, which surely tells even in USA people aren’t familiar with this FNU
thing.
I wish I would have gone with LNU instead of FNU, at least I would have been
called by my name instead of Fnu.
