India may not have typically registered births - but to get into the USA legally, you obviously must provide some sort of proof of identity. Absent a birth certificate, that would be the establishing documentation that person’s identity then follows from. Even for infants, and especially for adults, i suspect fingerprints are taken - which pretty firmly establishes your identity going forward.
I guess the INS does not care if you are Harpreet Singh or Inderjit Rammedeep; provided if they trace your life in India and, to the best of their abilities, determine that you are who you say you are, you have the Indian equivalent of a paper trail, and you will be a benefit to your new country - you are now a US immigrant of the name you provide.
As for Bulger’s tricks - if you have a stash of cash and are willing to accept a low key, minimal existence - buy crappy used cars for cash to avoid the $10,000 cash limit, rent for cash from people willing to accept that sort of setup - then yes, likely you can be John Smith for a long time. If you need to work, and need a decent income and want a decent lifestyle, then avoiding imperial entanglements (or federal ones) becomes trickier.
I know in Canada, failing to properly account for your employees is a crime for the employer - you need names, SSN (SIN in Canada), deduct taxes and forward to the government with reporting, etc. The people willing to bypass this probably know you’re desperate and pay crap too. Then you have to worry about the employer getting caught and passing on your name.
Not sure with the IRS, but Revenue Canada can freeze bank accounts without giving you warning time to empty them; similarly, there are stories about joint accounts being frozen by the bank when one spouse dies; banks at least used to do this routinely (I guess the question is, who’s going to tell them? the SSN people? I think this was a thread a while ago. ).
Again, you are missing the point. Proof of age is required for immigrants or international students or legal non-immigrant workers. (I would assume this is to ensure that social security benefits are available only at an appropriate age). Proof of birth is not required. So a person born in Sri Lanka, having an Indian Passport will only need the passport to get SSN.
When you get naturalized though, proof of birth is required.
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I guess the INS does not care if you are Harpreet Singh or Inderjit Rammedeep; …
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Its not INS - its USCIS. USCIS does not care if you are Jerry Atrick or Chris Cross either, they work like a Bureaucracy, so if the name on the passport does not match the name on the birth certificate - the application goes to a black hole.
"…original birth certificate issued by the official custodian of birth records in your country of birth, showing your date of birth, place of birth, and parentage. Important Notice: All Immigrant Visa applicants must submit a long form original birth certificate. Short form birth certificates will not be accepted.
The certificate must contain the:
Your date of birth
Your place of birth
Names of both parents
Indication by the appropriate authority that it is an extract from the official records"
USCIS definitely does not recognize passport as a **birth certificate. **
This is getting futile. You clearly stated that proof of birth is required for obtaining SSN even for legal aliens. And I am saying thats not true -Proof of age and not birth is required for legal aliens to get SSN (Proof of birth is required for naturalization). It maybe a technicality, but in opinion, it is significant.
If it’s futile, it’s because you keep seeing words that are not there. Proof of birth is not the same thing as a birth certificate. A passport is proof of birth, even if it is not necessarily accepted by all agencies for all purposes.
For Aliens authorized to work in the US, the job of the Social Security guys is to verify the authorization to work (issued by USCIS) and their AGE. A birth certificate is sufficient but not necessary to verify AGE (Age can be verified by other means). AGE is verified for retirement benefits primarily. Its not in the Social Security’s purview to verify BIRTH (as in place, parentage, etc.) for the aliens.
I woul make the educated guess that USCIS has procedures to handle lack of birth certificates for countries where such records were not properly kept. I assume such procedures and acceptable alternate proofs are dependent on the circumstances of each country.
In some heavily catholic countries, IIRC, years ago, a church baptism certificate was acceptable as a substitute for a birth certificate.
My step-niece is a Korean orphan adopted by her US parents many years ago - they are not at all sure what her birth date is. Due to malnutrition, nobody could accurately guess by her development and size. I think the orphanage made up a date, and that guess is accepted by everyone as official now. She may or may not have been cheated out of a few months of driving when she “turned 16”. She might have pulled one over on the DMV.
Underline mine. Not always: the SS card I got while a student had such a stamp, the one I got years later while on a work visa that was actually given to my employer* had no such notice. This second SS card was valid (required, in fact) for employment, although the employment itself was limited to the conditions of the Visa.
even if it was on my passport, I couldn’t change jobs within the company without notifying the Department of State and if I changed companies, the Visa wasn’t valid any more (a new one had to be obtained, but of a different type).
Minor bit of chuckle: Back when I was a tot, you didn’t need SS#s for anything until you wanted a job. As I was under 16 when I wanted a summer job, I had to get a SS# then a work permit (Ohio). Since they were already at the SS office, my parents figured they might as well get everybody an SS#, so we siblings all have consecutive Social Security Numbers, even though there almost 5 years age spread. (My first driver’s license had no picture).
I lost my wallet when I was stationed in Asia and I wrote my home state at the time to get a duplicate. They sent me a replacement with no photo and I used that to drive for three years.I was stopped once by a cop when I got back to the states and he was stunned that I had one like that. Fortunately, I also had my military ID with me and that had my photo.
Back to the subject at hand: If you have a baptismal certificate, a birth certificate, a tribal identity card (for Native Americans) or an a SS card you’ll be closer to proving that you are a “native born” than anything else that does not have your photo on it.
Even after 9/11, the myriad array of ID documents available are still valid when attempting to prove your citizenship.