abboy

Its been 8 weeks since my son applied for his SSN. He has been working for 2 weeks already ,his employer told him he cant be put in the payroll and get paid unless he has the SSN.
He went to SSA office several times already and they told him they are still waiting for the homeland security. Today , he was told that they will send a verification to USCIS again and wait for another 2 weeks. what is happening? he got his EAD thru I-485. He is planning to call USCIS , is it the right thing to do ? any advice?

Poor kid, Its his first time to work and is worried sick that he hard work wont get paid.

meauxna

Time to educate the employer, gently please.
Mr Kid can work, and be paid if he has applied for his SS account. USCIS won't be able to tell him much of anything, and EAD-upgrades are one of the slowest records to get updated in SAVE.
Posts from mdyoung will also be helpful to you regarding how to manage the manual-verification follow up with SSA.

Employers may hire candidates who have applied for, but not yet recieved, their Social Security Card.

http://tinyurl.com/3aqah6
Do legal aliens need a Social Security number to work?

Question
We are a company who is hiring legal aliens without Social Security numbers. Do they need a number to work, or just a work permit?

Answer
You are required to get each employee's name and Social Security number and to enter them on Form W-2. (This requirement also applies to resident and nonresident alien employees.) You should ask your employee to show you his or her social security card. The employee is required to show the card, if available. You may, but are not required to, photocopy the Social Security card if the employee provides it.

A non-U.S. citizen employee who does not have a Social Security number may apply for one by completing Form SS-5, Application for a Social Security Card. To apply for a card, he or she will need to complete Form SS-5 which is available for download. Or they may obtain Form SS-5 by calling 1-800-772-1213 or visiting the local Social Security office.

The employee will need to submit Form SS-5 with evidence of age, identity and current authorization to work from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). (The application cannot be filed by the employer.) The immigration document may be acceptable as evidence of both identity and authorization to work in the United States. All documents must be either originals or copies certified by the issuing agency.

To apply for a replacement card, the employee will need to submit Form SS-5 with evidence of identity and current authorization to work from the DHS. We cannot accept photocopies of documents. We need original documents or copies certified by the custodian of the record. Notarized copies are also not acceptable.

If the employee is a noncitizen, we must verify their documents with the (DHS) before we issue a card. We will issue the card within two days of receiving verification from DHS. Most of the time, we can quickly verify documents online with DHS. If DHS can't verify the documents online, it may take several weeks or months to respond to Social Security's request.

Employers may hire foreign workers who have applied for and are waiting to receive Social Security numbers and cards. The employee may work while the Social Security number application is being processed. If your employee applied for an SSN but does not have it when you must file Form W-2, enter "Applied for" on the form. When the employee receives the SSN, file Form W-2c, Corrected Wage and Tax Statement, to show the employee's SSN.

Note that these are SSA's instructions to employers.

abboy

Thanks for the advice, I will print this out for him. Oh,yes, I remember mdyoung , wonder where he is ? I can get few more tips from him as well.

mdyoung

I'm sitting right here. LOL

Well the verification process is now

1. Do the initial SAVE verification if that doesn't verify

2. Do a secondary electronic request if that doesn't verify deny the application

3. However, if the response from the secondary request comes back that they need to see the document(s), then the G-845 is sent with the document copies.

The follow up time on the secondary request is 15 business days and 20 on the G-845.

I would find out what step things are in and is it time to follow up. Plus if you can see why the initial SAVE verification failed. Based on POMS you can have one letter of the name be off and still be acceptable for the SAVE verification.

Example: Dob Smith for Bob Smith would be OK

abboy

Thanks, I will print this up for him to bring to the SSA office to find out what process are they doing to verify.

abboy

My son still has not received his SSN , he has beeen going back and forth to the office to verify. He applied for the SSN with EAD card on May 09 when we are still processing with our green card, on July 10 we received our
GC and he brought his GC back to the local office and check for his SSN, they copied his GC and said will fax it to "where"? and ask him to check after one week. Still no GC, we are planning to go to local office later, what should we ask them? Is the local office has no authority to do anything except to inquire and wait too?

He has been working for more than a month already and his employer wont give him his salary because he has no ssn.

mdyoung

There are phone numbers to call in POMS to follow up on the secondary verification if no response is received and there are contact numbers for each local verification office if the G-845 has been sent. Still SSA can't make DHS/USCIS do anything.

Here is the archived SSA POMS section that lists all the local immigration verification offices and phone numbers.

http://web.archive.org/web/200503182...lnx/0100203748

meauxna

Employer can pay him and use a dummy number!
Then go back and fill in a corrected wage statement as detailed above.

Poor kid.. should be getting his paycheck! That isn't right, and it's just becasue the employer can't be bothered to learn something new. Gentle pressure time, IMO.

abboy

WE came from local SSA office, they said they faxed the secondary request Monday and still have not heard from USCIS and gave us the 1800 nos. and told us to call USCIS ourselves to verify and also told us that there are people waiting longer than us for their SSN.
Is it appropriate that we call the USCIS ourselves ? Since we dont know what are the things that USCIS send to SSA for them to be able to issue the SSN, what question should we ask the USCIS ?

mdyoung

What number did they give you?

The secondary request is done electroniclly. The G-845 is what is mailed with the immigration documents and that's only done if the response to the secondary request is to see your documents.

abboy

Dept.of Homeland Security
18003755283

I have a feeling the SSA local office just want us to wait, when I asked about the request they sent, they just said its has been sent and other people are also waiting for their SSN.
I wonder why it's taking so long for my son while hubby and I only took 2-4 weeks last year.

mdyoung

Tell them thanks for nothing. That's the USCIS 800# and those people don't know anything.

abboy

Do we just use the contact nos. of USCIS in the link you gave above to verify ?

mdyoung

If that's where the verification request was sent you would at least have a chance of getting some useful information by calling the verification office, i.e. did they receive anything from that SSA office for your son.

abboy

Thanks for your help, I will try to call them on Monday.