Originally Posted by
Owlchick
Wow, that's so strange. I remarried in 2001 and didn't bother sending in for a name change until 2006 (about the time the divorce from this marriage was final). They didn't charge anything extra, nor did it require a renewal. All they did was rubber stamp the last page, indicating that my name had changed.
My wife's passport was amended to show her married name about 4 years after she got the passport. The inside back cover has a computer generated statement: PASSPORT NAME CHANGED TO 'MRSJ' EFFECTIVE XX/XX/XXXX
No fee. We were expecting them to do the same thing with our son's limited passport to extend its vailidity from 1 year to the full 5 years but they didn't. Evidently while his passport was literally in the mail on its way to the passport center, they changed the rules. Now, any passport needing amending due to expiry date, misspelled name, name change etc has to be *reissued* altogether. It was still free but we did have to pay for new photos.
I asked why that was and the NPIC rep said it's because DHS (ICE specifically) asked them to stop printing changes in the back.
I asked who was responsible for how passports operate, State or ICE? She laughed and said State of course, but it's ICE that decides if they'll let you back in the country
Plus, she said the US was the only country in the world that did that printing in the back cover thing.