Is SSN required for I-130 ?

[M.Diz 0]

Hello everyone,

I'm a US citizen by birth currently living in Belgium, and I wanted to fill the i-130 petition for my son. The problem is that I don't have a social security number. That is because I only stayed in the states for 2 years after I was born and then my parent moved back to Belgium.

So is it possible to have the petition approved without ever having a SSN ?

[amykathleen2005 441]

You can easily get one here:

http://www.ssa.gov/ssnumber/ss5doc.html

Edited June 29, 2012 by amykathleen2005

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Hello everyone,

I'm a US citizen by birth currently living in Belgium, and I wanted to fill the i-130 petition for my son. The problem is that I don't have a social security number. That is because I only stayed in the states for 2 years after I was born and then my parent moved back to Belgium.

So is it possible to have the petition approved without ever having a SSN ?

Follow the instructions in the link AmyKathleen gave you. You can send your application to the Federal Benefits Unit at the US Embassy in London.

You will need to move back to the United States before your son will be able to get a visa. This is because you will be required to be domiciled in the United States in order to submit an affidavit of support for him. You may have some catching up to do with the IRS, as well. As a US citizen you were required to file income tax returns in the US, even though you were living abroad. This often isn't an issue for US citizens who leave the US as children and never come back, but the US government will almost certainly make an issue of it when you try to sponsor a family member for a visa.

[richardkorea2010 15]

Can't your son obtain US citizenship from you as the parent being a US citizen?? If you are a US citizen, your son should be able to get citizenship,

Unless there is something I am reading wrong,

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Can't your son obtain US citizenship from you as the parent being a US citizen?? If you are a US citizen, your son should be able to get citizenship,

Unless there is something I am reading wrong,

In order to pass citizenship to his son he would need to have been physically present in the US for five years, at least two of which were after he was 14 years old. The intention of this restriction is to prevent a US citizen from moving abroad and then passing US citizenship down to a never ending succession of descendents. He doesn't meet the physical presence requirements to pass US citizenship to his son.

His son will become a US citizen automatically if he enters the US with an immigrant visa before he's 18, and is in the physical custody of his US citizen parent in the United States.

[richardkorea2010 15]

I see. Thank you for explaining, :-)

That makes perfectly sense now,