What brings you homeQuestion 5 of 11
“How many children do you have?”
The short answer
The US Embassy in India says some consultants "encourage parents wishing to visit U.S.-based children to lie about the number or location of their other children." It says applicants have been "found permanently ineligible for visas because they provided false information during interviews."
The advice going around
Just mention one of them
Parents with more than one child abroad are told to name a single son, on the theory that two sounds like a plan to stay. The embassy has published what happens next, and it names this practice directly: encouraging parents to lie about the number or location of their children. It says applicants have been found permanently ineligible for doing it.
At the window
The same question, answered two ways
What most people say
“One, sir! Only one son. In America. Only one.”
What works
“Sir, two sons. Both in New Jersey. We visit them, and we come home.”
Two sons there, we can talk about. A lie, we can’t. That one’s permanent.
His inner voice · episode 5
So if both your sons live in the US, say so. The officer weighs a true answer, and a false one can keep you out for good.
Check it yourself
What the embassy actually publishes
The US embassy names lying about how many children you have as a route to permanent ineligibility
Consultants sometime sell to students fake financial packages or encourage parents wishing to visit U.S.-based children to lie about the number or location of their other children. In both of these scenarios, applicants have been found permanently ineligible for visas because they provided false information during interviews.
Read 16 October 2026
Giving false information at a US visa interview can make you permanently ineligible
Intentionally submitting false information either on the application itself or during the visa interview can lead to a finding of a permanent ineligibility.
Read 16 October 2026
The applicant, not the consultant, is answerable for what the application says
You alone are responsible for the accuracy of the information in your application.
Read 16 October 2026
The rule behind it
What the law actually says
A US visa application starts from the assumption that you intend to stay
The officer does not start from neutral. The law tells them to assume you intend to stay, and the burden is on you to show otherwise. That is why almost every question is a way of asking the same thing: what brings you back.
Every alien [ … ] shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer, at the time of application for a visa [ … ] that he is entitled to a nonimmigrant status.
What we can and cannot do
We are licensed for Canada (RCIC R710507). We help with US visitor visa applications, and for US legal advice a US-licensed immigration attorney is the person to ask.
Where this stops
What this page does not claim
Having children in the United States is something the officer weighs, and this page does not claim it is fine. What it claims is narrower: the lie is the part the embassy has published a consequence for.
Keep going
The rest of the interview
Before the window
Send us the file before the interview, not after.
We read the DS-160 against what the officer will ask, tell you which answers are doing you harm, and say plainly where the gaps are. If the honest answer is that nothing is wrong, we say that too.
Three fields · about 30 seconds