4

My wife and I are Indian citizens. My daughter was born in the USA in 2000 during my stay in the USA on H1B visa. I got an Indian visa for my daughter holding a US passport. We all moved to India in 2001.

I renewed my daughter's passport once in India and it has expired. Since coming back to India I have not renewed her Indian visa.

My daughter wants to have the option of keeping US citizenship and still stay in India and continue her studies after 12th standard.

Please let me how to renew her Indian visa and get PIO card so that she can continue her Engineering degree in India.

Improve this question
3
  • Because she was born in the USA, your daughter will be an American citizen forever. I have no idea what Indian law is here—I am surprised she is not an Indian citizen and that she needs any visa at all. In any case, that question would be better asked on Expatriates Stack Exchange, or a specialist site on Indian nationality law.
    – Andrew Lazarus
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 6:42
  • 1
    So, using Google—*please check this with appropriate authorities*—if your daughter wishes to use an American passport, she must obtain an OCI card (a successor to the PIO card), which does not confer Indian citizenship but does allow lifetime residence. She could also obtain an Indian passport and citizenship next year at 18, but that involves renunciation of American citizenship. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Citizenship_of_India
    – Andrew Lazarus
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 6:49
  • 2
    @AndrewLazarus "Because she was born in the USA, your daughter will be an American citizen forever": in fact, she can renounce her US citizenship if she wants to. The reason she's not an Indian citizen is that a dual citizen child's acquisition of the foreign passport causes loss of Indian nationality.
    – phoog
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 13:50

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

India does not allow dual citizenship hence the requirement of the PIO card you mentioned. But please note that the PIO card is being replaced by the OCI card; and, by October 2018 you will not be able to travel using the PIO card anymore.

Last date of application for free conversion of PIO Cards to OCI Cards is on or before 31st December 2017 Thereafter a fee of US $275.00 will be charged as for issuance of a fresh OCI Card; and all PIO Card holders are, therefore, requested to apply for converting their PIO Cards into OCI Cards, free of any Consular Fee, on or before 31st December 2017; The last date will not be extended beyond 31st December 2017.

CKGS Service charges & optional value-added service charges (if opted) will apply.

With effect from October 2018, International Civil Aviation Organization will accept only machine-readable travel documents and hence the existing PIO cards will become invalid. All PIO Card holders are, therefore, requested to apply for converting their existing handwritten PIO Cards into machine-readable OCI Cards.

source

However, overstaying in India is illegal (punishable by fine, imprisonment or deportation) whether it's for 1 day or 100 days and the first thing you should do is to notify the nearest US embassy/consulate and follow their instructions for your passport renewal. The first thing that I suggest is to get her passport renewed. It will be the easy part.

The harder part, then you should follow the path of the OCI card but please keep in mind that you will have to pay fines because of the illegal overstay and late visa renewal. AND she must have a valid visa to obtain an OCI card. It would be a time and effort consuming process because of all of the "official procedures" of the FRRO/BOI for the visa renewal under such circumstances.

On the other hand, getting an Indian passport, hence renouncing US citizenship would be a totally different story.

Improve this answer
1
  • "and the first thing you should do is to notify the nearest US embassy/consulate and follow their instructions." It sounds like you are saying they should notify the US consulate about the overstay, but the US has nothing to do with it -- a US citizen can stay abroad as long as they like. You should clarify that contacting the US consulate is only in regards to applying for a passport, and not anything to do with the overstay.
    – user102008
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 19:41

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.