Updating citizenship status with Social Security - haven't received my forms

[lawumma 0]

So with COVID, the SS office is not accepting in-person appointments and everything is essentially through mail/phone. My husband received his citizenship certificate in November and was told to update his status with SS after about two weeks. We contacted SS and they told us to have him mail his original certificate along with an N-565 form. We mailed it on 12/11 and have called back each week only to be told that it's not "in the system" and to check back later. I'm so worried that the forms were lost in the mail! We stupidly did not send it through certified mail so we can't even confirm if they received it or not. :(

 

I'm wondering if this is normal for it to take this long for them to process our forms or if we have reason to suspect the mail has been lost. Anyone ever been in a similar situation? Should we just keep waiting? How long is too long to wait before worrying?

[JeanneAdil 6,498]

It seems to be the new norm

did you send a self addressed envelope for the return of your documents?

and when you send these in for a US passport , always  send them with self addressed (i used large manila envelope for sending  and returning so the document would not be folded over)  self stamped / and send return receipt so you know it arrived

 

BTW for US passport the 3 items will be sent back separately 

[Mike E 11,739]

Did he apply for his passport first? Does he have his US passport? Did he make a photo or electronic copy of his naturalization cert before mailing it off?

 

Sending my naturalization cert to SSA would have been a hard no.  I don’t need my SS record updated that badly.  
 

The same is true of my wife’s SS record now that she has her green card.  Not gonna happen on my watch. 

Edited December 31, 2020 by Mike E

[NancyNguyen 1,657]

I don’t find any reason to update my SS card that desperately, especially in this pandemic. Let’s pray it doesn’t get lost in the mail.

[ROC-AL 87]

I'm sorry, but this is the second thread with problems i have read about passport or Naturalization certificates.  In both ways i am kinda interested to delay either actions. Not directly involved, but is this a government agency problem or just the USPS? 

 

a) Our friends are currently doing AOS and to give a short explanation, they have not gotten a SS# issued still. I keep reading that the SSO takes documents by mail but we called for them and they had no call back or anything like that was mentioned over the phone to get a SS# issued

b) Can a self address envelope or UPS prepaid envelope be sent to the passport agency? so that the documents not get lost by regular mail?

c) Is this gonna be the new norm that everything is praying with USPS and return prepaid envelopes from UPS, FEDEX or DHL?

 

thanks for any input

[Mike E 11,739]

1 hour ago, ROC-AL said:

I'm sorry, but this is the second thread with problems i have read about passport or Naturalization certificates.  In both ways i am kinda interested to delay either actions. Not directly involved, but is this a government agency problem or just the USPS? 

In order of most to least competent when it comes to not losing critical documents  there  are 4 agencies involved:

 

Passport office. 
USCIS

USPS

SSA

 

The passport office is used to handling old passports, green cards, naturalization certs, citizenship certs, CRBAs, etc and thus has processes for reducing the chance that these documents will be lost.  
 

USCIS normally doesn’t deal with original documents by mail but in my experience they tend to not lose these documents when they receive them. For example I know a couple that sent an original foreign birth certificate with an AOS and when they told me, I face palmed.  Fortunately they messed up their I-864 and so the original birth certificate was returned.  
 

However USCIS is inept at processing changes of addresses.  Hence green cards, combo cards, and other USCIS mailings like interview notices get sent to the wrong address all the time.  
 

Possibly because of their role (contract which equals critical revenue) USPS tends to not lose mail sent to or sent from the passport office.  But documents involving USCIS are routinely lost or mis delivered.  Documents from SSA do get reliably delivered.  There is evidence that there are USPS workers that deliberately lose or mis deliver USCIS documents and there is evidence that post masters are unable to fire incompetent or malicious carriers except for those caught red handed by federal law enforcers.     
 

Now we get to SSA.  
 

SSA is optimized for two things: in person interactions to apply for new SS cards for children and making sure retirees get their checks.  Everything else it is inept at.  
 

With COVID, unlike other agencies, SSA has been unwilling to re-open.  This is understandable.  Most of the people who would walk into a local SS office are older and thus at higher risk to COVID.  SSA and the chain of command above SSA do not want SSA offices to become worse than retirement and nursing  homes as vectors for killing older residents of the USA.  
 

So now SSA is faced with verifying immigration statuses and it needs or thinks it needs original, hard to replace documents to do that.  And unlike the passport office, it isn’t set up to do that.  So we can imagine haphazard stacks of SS-5 applications and the critical documents all other the place with no room.  
 

SSA’s stupid info tech systems compound this problem.  For example; Enter the US on a k-1, wait two days, print your I-94, and before COVID go to SSA office to apply for an SS card.  And about half the time SS will say that their records don’t show lawful presence.  Despite the fact that CBP’s website says there is lawful presence.  So when an SS-5 is mailed in, if the SS worker cannot verify lawful presence, the case gets set aside, which provides an opportunity for critical documents to be lost.  And the SSA and its workers don’t care. Because COVID.  

 

And these people at SSA actually demand an LPR send a green card to get a SS card. Think about that for a minute: it is against federal criminal  law for LPR’s to not carry a green card on their person.  So SSA is demanding LPRs break the law.  
 

SSA is also no good at issuing SS cards automatically to new immigrants and EAD holders.  

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by Mike E

[lawumma 0]

7 hours ago, NancyNguyen said:

I don’t find any reason to update my SS card that desperately, especially in this pandemic. Let’s pray it doesn’t get lost in the mail.

 

8 hours ago, Mike E said:

Did he apply for his passport first? Does he have his US passport? Did he make a photo or electronic copy of his naturalization cert before mailing it off?

 

Sending my naturalization cert to SSA would have been a hard no.  I don’t need my SS record updated that badly.  
 

The same is true of my wife’s SS record now that she has her green card.  Not gonna happen on my watch. 

Responding to both of these comments....we learned our lesson. We didn't realize that updating SS was not a big deal. Since the USCIS officer told my husband to update it with SS, we figured "oh, I guess we better do that" which is why we did that first. Now we know that it's not really that important and we should have just got his passport first. Hopefully they do send us back the certificate.

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

I’m sure it’s caught up in the massive backlog at USPS. Did you send it with a tracking number?

[Eli_za 50]

So sorry to hear that. Hopefully you get your certificate back soon. 

 

thank God I became US citizen on June 2020, since the. I ve been trying to get an appt so I can update my citizenship status with SSA. Even today day I called 3 different offices and all 3 told me I need to mail my certificate due to covid19. I did mention my concern about the document being sent by mail, they told me that is white they do business now (via mail) unless is a emergency, an updating status was not an emergency.   They just don’t understand how important our citizenship documents are to us, we came from a long journey, paperwork, filing fees, etc. 

 

my urgent reason to update is because of the tax return.  Last year my documents were filled as a permanent resident. This year I’m a US citizen (thank God).   The lady over the phone told me that will be a question for IRS. 

 

 

 I will I’ll try next week again and see if something has changed at SSA. 

 

 

 

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

36 minutes ago, Eli_za said:

So sorry to hear that. Hopefully you get your certificate back soon. 

 

thank God I became US citizen on June 2020, since the. I ve been trying to get an appt so I can update my citizenship status with SSA. Even today day I called 3 different offices and all 3 told me I need to mail my certificate due to covid19. I did mention my concern about the document being sent by mail, they told me that is white they do business now (via mail) unless is a emergency, an updating status was not an emergency.   They just don’t understand how important our citizenship documents are to us, we came from a long journey, paperwork, filing fees, etc. 

 

my urgent reason to update is because of the tax return.  Last year my documents were filled as a permanent resident. This year I’m a US citizen (thank God).   The lady over the phone told me that will be a question for IRS. 

 

 

 I will I’ll try next week again and see if something has changed at SSA. 

 

 

 

You don’t need it updated  at SS to state you are a citizen on your tax return.

[MrKo 60]

On 1/5/2021 at 9:00 PM, SusieQQQ said:

You don’t need it updated  at SS to state you are a citizen on your tax return.

May I ask if there’s a source on this that you could share? It’s tax season so I have the same concern, just wanted to be on the safe side. Thanks.

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

1 hour ago, MrKo said:

May I ask if there’s a source on this that you could share? It’s tax season so I have the same concern, just wanted to be on the safe side. Thanks.

Well I did it last year with no problems, not sure if that counts as a source lol. To turn the question on its head, what source have you read that says you have to change your status at SSA before doing this (or anything else for that matter)? You’re a citizen with proof of it, regardless what is on SSA records. 

[MrKo 60]

9 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

Well I did it last year with no problems, not sure if that counts as a source lol. To turn the question on its head, what source have you read that says you have to change your status at SSA before doing this (or anything else for that matter)? You’re a citizen with proof of it, regardless what is on SSA records. 

That's right. Thanks.

[NEW CITIZEN 151]

15 hours ago, MrKo said:

May I ask if there’s a source on this that you could share? It’s tax season so I have the same concern, just wanted to be on the safe side. Thanks.

Hard to prove a negative!!!

As long as taxes are paid IRS could care less what status you are. Taxation is the same.

 

Only reason to update SS at this time, is if you're ready to take retirement, and retire in another country without returning 6 months per year. (Requirement GC holders, no citizens)

[Pats5415 97]

4 hours ago, NEW CITIZEN said:

Hard to prove a negative!!!

As long as taxes are paid IRS could care less what status you are. Taxation is the same.

 

Only reason to update SS at this time, is if you're ready to take retirement, and retire in another country without returning 6 months per year. (Requirement GC holders, no citizens)

So the only time we would need to update SSN# urgently is if we were going to claim SSI or start retirement?