I have a couple questions on immigration and I am hoping someone here can answer.
I have a friend who was born in Wales. He is getting ready to retire and he needs his birth certificate. How does one go about getting a birth certificate from over seas? He said he was born at home and that he does not think there was an official record.
Second, He says his mother got him a green card when they came to the US but that he never renewed it?? not sure what he means. He has a SS card card has been working for years. Don’t you need a birth certificate to even get a SS card? Can you even get a SS card if you are not a US citizen ?
He is 64 so maybe the laws were different back then.
Sorry if that all sounds choppy I don’t have all the facts from him but thought I would throw it out to see if any one had more information on immigration.
I’m giving this thread a slight nudge because if Eva Luna sees it, she can tell you everything you need to know.
I take it your friend needs a birth certificate to prove his age and collect Social Security. In the past, SS would accept “delayed birth certificates”. This was common in the early days of SS when many older people had been born before states issued birth certificates. It entailed going to the state of birth with some evidence (like an affidavit from a relative) of your birthdate. The state would then issue a “delayed birth certificate”.
You can get a SS card even if you’re not a citizen, but the ones they give noncitizens have special markings and limitations.
However, if your friend has let his green card expire, and has not been naturalized, he’s in the country illegally and had better get a lawyer. Worst case, if he gets deported, he may still be entitled to SS if he paid into it. There are various “totalization” agreements between countries that facilitate this.
Thanks for the bump and the information. I have a feeling he has let his green card expire. As far as I know he not been naturalized. I know he has been here since he was a child (not sure what age) but he has lived and worked in the US for for at least 50 years. I will ask him more information about what his SS card looks like and if it has special markings.
True now, but in the past (and still occasionally now) the SS Administration would forget to print the restrictions on the card.
Actually, even if a person’s card has expired, that doesn’t mean he’s no longer a permanent resident; it just means he should go get a new card. He can even fill out the form online - it’s the Form I-90. Link:
So he may get hassled if he needs to prove he’s a permanent resident for whatever reason, but he should NOT be in danger of being deported.
Also, your friend should ask - his parents probably submitted birth documentation for him as part of the green card process, so it probably exists. However, this issue comes up all the time; for example, in India birth registration wasn’t mandatory until the late 60s or early 70s (can’t remember the exact date), so lots of people, especially those born in rural areas, don’t have birth certificates. Hell, lots of people born in the U.S., particularly older people, don’t have birth certificates - most government agencies have procedures for acceptance of other forms of birth documentation/proof of age in such cases (early medical/school records, affidavits from older relatives, etc.) I do this all the time.
I will print out this information and the information from the link. I can submit the information online if he wants but will also print out the paper form and the information for the local filing office.
If he has had several jobs, or jobs within the past 10-15 years, he might remember having to provide documentation that he is allowed to work in the U.S. This would be some combination of U.S. passport, birth certificate, SS card, green card, naturalization papers, driver’s license, etc.
What I mean is, is he SURE he doesn’t have any of those documents? Maybe he just forgot that he has them. Or his employer might have copies, which might make it a lot easier to get reissued originals.
The info I have actually came from my BF who is best friends with this person. I will tell my BF today what information I got from **Eva Luna ** and he can pass it on.
He has worked at the same job for like the last 30 years. He has a drivers license (I believe a CDL) as he drives chartered busses and he has a SS card but that he never actually became a US citizen. He is now looking into retiring and he does not have his birth certificate as he was born overseas. He is not even sure that there was ever a formal certificate as he was born at home. As **Eva Luna ** stated his mother must have produced some information when they came to the US when she got him his green card when he was young. I do not think he has any of this paperwork. He never renewed his green card but I am not sure how long it has been since it was updated.
I did not talk to the person themselves about the green card stuff. I knew about the birth certificate and as far as I knew he had written a cousin that still lived in Wales to see if she could find a record and get a copy but I don’t think he heard back from her.
Hopefully I will see him this weekend to give him the paperwork and I can also get more information from him directly.
Here is the link to the General Register Office of England and Wales. If Eva Luna’s site doesn’t work, try this one. I believe that your friend can order a certified “official” birth certificate. He should check around on the site a bit. Found it!
It will probably be faster for him to get a birth certificate from England (they are pretty good about that stuff) than to do this, but he could try requesting copies of his docs from Social Security. Of course, if they actually correlated files, then they would already know when he was born and all. (Caveat: I’ve never applied for a SS card - my parents got mine for me when I was a baby, and things are probably much more uptight now, so I only know what they ask for now in terms of documentation.)
First, I want to thank everyone for the information they provided and the links. I did send in the request for a birth certificate. I received a “CERTIFIED COPY OF AN ENTRY OF BIRTH” from the General Register Office in England. Is this a birth certificate? or now that I have this do I need to use it to request an actual birth certificate. I guess I assumed it would look more like ours does here in the US. All of the information is basically a copy from the original hand written information in the registry.
The reason I am concerned is that is states on the bottom of the certificate “WARNING: A CERTIFICATE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF IDENTITY”
If you can please shed some light on this for me.
Thanks,
Tina
oh, and I never received anything from overseas, it was kind of exciting
I do think what you have is a birth certificate. The reason it says it’s not evidence of identity is that it’s not - I can have Queen Elizabeth’s birth certificate but it doesn’t prove she and I are the same person. You would use the birth certificate, along with other documents, to obtain proof of identify (such as a passport or driver’s license). The certificate alone is not proof.
