Dear Editor:
A colleague of mine recently returned from a trip to an amusement park in Southern California. He said that while there, he struck up a conversation with a young food service worker from Denmark. She told my colleague that she was visiting the United States for the summer and that she had gotten the job at the amusement park through an English-language school that was sponsoring her trip.
My colleague asked me if this young Danish visitor was issued a Social Security number and if taxes were bing deducted from her paycheck. Although I obviously do not know the facts of this particular case, the answers are probably “yes” and “yes”.
Many people often wonder if non-U.S. citizens can get Social Security numbers. Although there are exceptions, the general rule is that only non-citizens who are legally authorized to work in this country can get Social Security numbers. And once they work, they generally pay income taxes and sometimes all of the other taxes that other workers pay.
Before people come to the United States to work, they have to get documents from the Department of Homeland Security — formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service — showing their immigration status and eligibility to work while in the United States. Once they have a U.S. visa and other DHS documentation showing their eligibility to work and after they arrive in this country, they can apply for a Social Security number and card from the Social Security Administration.
Social Security takes great care to pay attention to legal requirements and rules of evidence. For example, to get a Social Security number, foreign workers usually will need to show us documents which prove the following:
Age — Birth certificates are generally the best evidence of age and must be presented, if they are available or can be obtained easily. If not, we can consider other documents, such as passports or documents issued by DHS.
Identity — We must see a document other than a birth certificate that shows the name the visitors want on their Social Security card. We prefer a recently issued document with a photograph, such as a document issued by DHS.
Immigration status — We need to see the DHS document I-94, Arrival/Departure Record, issued when the visitors arrived in the United States, showing lawful immigration status.
Eligibility to work — For most foreign workers, the I-94, Arrival/Departure Record usually proves eligibility to work. But if workers are exchange visitors (such as the amusement park worker my colleague talked to), they must provide a form called the DS-2019, Certificate of Eligibility for Exchange Visitor (J-I) Status. And if they are in the United States as students or international visitors, they will also need original, signed letters from their sponsors showing authorization to work.
After we have all of this evidence, we must take one more step before we can issue a Social Security number. We must verify the documents are authentic with DHS. Sometimes that can be done online in a matter of days. But other times, we have to do the verification by mail, and that can take several weeks or months.
I hope that helps everyone understand that we take many steps to ensure that only foreign visitors who are authorized to have a Social Security number get a Social Security number.
If you want more information, you can read a fact sheet addressing this issue at http://www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10107.html.
Yvonne Bryant
Social Security Manager, Jersey City