‘90 Day Fiancé’: Is Jen and Rishi’s Visa Storyline Fake?
90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way Season 4 couple Jen Boecher and Rishi Singh are being accused of faking their storyline regarding her visa. Here’s the truth behind the visa and whether or not their storyline was made up to make it more interesting.
All about Jen’s 30-day single-entry tourist visa
As documented in the previous episode of 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way, the 46-year-old American had planned to move to India on a tourist visa but found out she would have to leave again.
Jen knew her tourist visa was only valid for 120 days, but she was under the impression that 30 days meant she could leave and return within 120 days. She planned to travel to a nearby country and return to India to restart the 30 days. She thought she would have four months to spend with Rishi before getting married.
However, the immigration lawyer informed Jen that her visa is a single entry, meaning that it’s no longer valid once she leaves the country. She was advised to return to the United States and reapply for another tourist visa.
Did Jen and Rishi know about the visa limitations?
On the March 26 episode of The Other Way, it’s the last day of Jen’s 30-day tourist visa, and she’s getting ready to fly home to America. “It really sucks to be leaving Rishi again because we waited two years, and now after 30 days, we’re being ripped apart again,” she said.
Some 90 Day Fiancé fans thought that Jen and Rishi were faking that they didn’t know the limitations of Jen’s tourist visa. A fan wrote via Reddit, “Jen would have been required to book a ticket home (or to another country) to enter India on a single entry tourist E-Visa in the first place… FAKE.”
However, this isn’t true. According to the India visa website, they recommend that everyone entering the country on a tourist visa possess a return ticket: “The foreigner should have a return ticket or onward journey ticket, with sufficient money to spend during his/her stay in India.” However, it didn’t say a return ticket is required to apply for the E-visa.
The truth behind Jen’s visa
India closed its border during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic for nearly two years and didn’t reopen them to foreigners until December 2021. The consulate website explains that the government only offered “a single entry Tourist Visa” with “a validity for 120 days and a maximum stay permitted of 30 days within this 120-day period.”
As documented on 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way, Rishi and Jen celebrated Kite Day, which is a traditional Indian holiday celebrated each year on Jan. 14. This means that Jen was in India in January 2022.
It wasn’t until March 2022 that the Indian government restored long-stay visas for US citizens. They also began offering tourist visas for “one month, one year, and five years.” But when Jen was in India, the only option for her was the single-entry 30-day visa.
In the preview for the upcoming episode, Jen got approved for her new visa and is returning to India in a matter of weeks. So even though it’s suggested that foreigners have a return ticket in place, it isn’t required for a visa. So it seems that the visa mishap was just poor planning on Jen’s part and not faked by TLC, at least not this time.
New episodes of 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way Season 4 air Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on TLC.
