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Hello. I am soliciting advice for a problem I am having regarding my adopted son's citizenship status.
We applied for and received his Certificate of Citizenship. Upon attempting to change his citizenship status at Social Security from Permanent Resident to Citizen, we were issued a letter stating that the Department of Homeland Security could not verify his COC.
I called a contact that I have at USCIS. They looked up my son's status via his A number. It turns out that whoever processed his N-600 application did NOT change his status in the computer system to Citizen when they issued the Certificate of Citizenship. Until this is done, Social Secuirty will not update his status in their system.
I wrote USCIS District 5 a letter asking them to correct his status in their system. Do you think this will suffice or will I need to make an appointment on USCIS InfoPass to meet with someone at the District 5 office?
Any advice is welcome.
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You will probably have to go to the USCIS office and show the official the certificate that was issued.
Didn't you show the CoC at Social Security? I'm surprised that this did not suffice.
The good news is that the USCIS office did not claim to have a problem with your child's eligibility for a CoC.
Sharon
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sak9645
Didn't you show the CoC at Social Security? I'm surprised that this did not suffice.
Thanks for your advice.
The SSA, IRS, and other gov't agencies cross check information against the DHS (Homeland Security) database. If their computer system can't validate the info, then whatever you try to do is denied.
That's my problem: I have the CoC, but since USCIS did not update my son's citizenship status in their computer system, DHS, SSA, etc still show him as a permanent resident.
After paying USCIS $420 for the CoC, I am very angry that I may have to make an InfoPass appointment to help them fix the problem they created.
I wonder how many other people this has happened to - they get the CoC but USCIS fails to update status to Citizen in the system. If the adoptive parents dont try to to make changes at SSA or apply for a passport, they will never know that the CoC they have is basically worthless since the USCIS database still lists status as Permanent Resident.
In my almost 7 years here this is the first time I have heard of this happening, but you make a great point about how many people just aren't aware of it.
Not only people who never went back to SSA or applied for a passport, but the confirming the validity of the COC is a relatively recent practice. So for people who went in with the COC just a few years ago this wouldn't have been done and they would have no way of knowing either.
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My local social security office called me yesterday. They were nice enough to keep trying to change my son's status in their system. On May 5, it finally went through. So, it looks like DHS and USCIS finally updated their computer system. Now, thankfully, I dont meed to make an InfoPass appointment to straighten this out. Sometime, all it takes is writing a letter and finding the right government employee to work with.