UK/US Embassies question!?

Question

John applied to a tourist visa at the US consulate and was rejected because he couldn't prove that he will leave the USA at the end of his visit.

Now John has a new clean passport and wants to apply to the UK embassy for a tourist visa and sincerely plans to return home at the end of his visit to the UK.

On the UK visitor visa application, there's a question,

"Have you ever been refused a visa for any country, including the UK?"

- If John answers "Yes, rejected a USA tourist visa", will this negatively affect the evaluation of his application?

- If John answers "No" to this question,

is there any way the UK consulate would know that John wasn't telling all the truth on this question?

Many thanks for your answer.

Answer 1

They won't be able to know as such, but it's bad news if they find out, so it's not worth lieing.

I'd bet if you explain that you were rejected for this reason and you learned from your mistake, you'll be fine.

* Note: as profiling is quite commonly in UK embassies and passport offices, if your name is in fact Mohammed, I would in fact think twice about telling them about this (sorry if this comes off as racist in any way) as they will just jump to the wrong conclusion without listening to your explaination..