I just got a call from a hysterical friend. Here’s the bio details and the facts as best as I could make them out through the hysteria from a brief phone call:
She was born 35 years ago while her parents, both US citizens, were vacationing in the UK. She has lived and worked in the US all of her life, has a SS#, went to college here, is currently a homeowner, is in the process of selling her apartment in NY to buy in Philly, and has a driver’s license.
She went to the SS office today to get a new SS card and fears she’s about to begin adventures in beaurocratic wonderland. In order to replace the card they asked her to present some other forms of ID in addition to her driver’s license, such as a birth certificate or document from the British Consulate, or a passport, none of which she has. (Her parents are divorced and are far less than the most responsible people in the world and are apparently unreliable to provide any such documentation).
Being unable to provide these things, they told her she’d need to go to the immigration office.
I believe these are all the details I know at this point. So here are the questions:
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First off, she was a bit hysterical as I’ve mentioned. Does this seem sound or might I have misunderstood a detail in there?
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If she’s a homeowner, with a college degree,and has been working steadily in her career for some years, isn’t there some easy way to prove that she is a citizen without presenting the other documents I mentioned? Is this really an issue to be handled by immigration?
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What are the possible scenarios? (I don’t see deportation as a possibility, but in her freaked out state I think she was imagining the worst. Should she actually be worried about that?)