German citizen - US green card holder travel questions - Name issues and general Qs

[fondue 1]

Hi - I'm sure this has been asked before but I cannot find it on here:

 

My wife has been in the US over a year and she has obtained the green card.  We never did her abmeldung/deregistration or a new name declaration for Germany.  Her current passport with her "old name" (still her legal name in germany though?) is still valid for a long time but will she be able to travel with that? The green card name does not match the passport name.

 

If we do the name declaration it apparently takes months and then she'll need a new passport after that? What kind of timeline is there for that?  We would like to travel to germany this summer and I'm trying to get ahead of any problems.. we really need to do the deregistration at the very least.  I'm not sure what her hold up is there but it seems simple enough.

 

The other question I guess is what does a german citizen need document wise when traveling out of the US and then back in?  she has the old/valid passport, the green card, a NC state ID, birth cirtificate, marriage cert etc what is necessary to travel?  What is the process for re-entering the US after a 2 week trip back to germany?

 

Thank you.

[Sparkle Sparkle 914]

I guess she could travel from the states to Germany on her old passport with her old name....but when she gets to Germany she will have to do a change of name to the name on her GC and obtain a new German passport with her new name if she wants to come back to the states...if not she will have problems getting past immigration.

[Letspaintcookies 2,310]

1 hour ago, Sparkle Sparkle said:

I guess she could travel from the states to Germany on her old passport with her old name....but when she gets to Germany she will have to do a change of name to the name on her GC and obtain a new German passport with her new name if she wants to come back to the states...if not she will have problems getting past immigration.

Nah she'll be fine with the marriage certificate. That's the link between the passport and the greencard.

 

But yea, get the deregistration done. They might charge you with some hefty fines since it should have been done latest two weeks after moving.

 

All she'll need during your stay in Germany is her passport. Not different than from any other vacation to another country.