US Driver license renewal for Taiwan spouse

Legal Visa & Residency
1

My wife studied in Texas for her Master’s Degree and got a Texas driver license during that time. Our eventual plans are to move from Taiwan back to Texas several years in the future, so we would like to maintain both of our Texas driver licenses. We’ve been able to renew both licenses fine so far, but now we have hit a snag for renewing her license. It looks like non-US citizens do not easily qualify for Texas driver licenses anymore, and I believe this applies to most or all other states as of late 2009. Increased security is the primary reason, and it does seem to make sense in light of the “war on terror” and such. Information about Texas is here: txdps.state.tx.us/administra … usDLID.htm
Detailed visa information (where it explains that a visitor visa doesn’t qualify) is here in a PDF file: txdps.state.tx.us/administra … sChart.pdf

Currently my wife only has a visitor visa to travel in the US during our vacations. It appears that she would need a different visa in order to qualify for keeping her driver license. In my mind, some kind of immigration visa (e.g. K-3 or another immigration visa) seems to be the logical choice, but since we do not plan on immigrating to the US right away, is that even something that would help us? Is there another visa that would be better?

Our plan is to travel to Texas probably about once a year during summer vacation, and it’d be great if my wife could drive using her Texas driver license during that time. The only other option I can think of is getting an international driver license based on her Taiwan driver license.

My main questions are:

  1. Is there any good way to keep US driver licenses from expiring for our Taiwan spouses while the couple lives in Taiwan?
  2. Is an immigration visa even worth pursuing if the couple is intending to live in Taiwan for a while?

Thank you for any advice.

2

Our State of residence in the US is Washington. My wife got her driver’s license many years ago. When it comes time for driver’s license renewal, we go to the DMV and renew it. Nothing on her driver’s license says that she’s not an American or not a Permanent Resident (green card holder). She walks up to the counter, presents her driver’s license with the notice for renewal, pays the fees, has a vision screening, gets a new picture taken (which she always hates), they give her the temp paper one and tell her the license will arrive in the mail within two weeks. It always does and it’s good for 5 years.

3

Thanks Northcoast Surfer. That’s how the renewal process should be, and that’s how it was in Texas before.

I’m now reading that a judge may have struck down this new rule that I wrote about above, so I guess I’ll find out next month when I go to renew my own license. My wife’s license doesn’t expire until next summer, so I’ll try to find out what the status is when I go in person to renew my own license. Hopefully she’ll still be able to keep her license.