Paperwork once you are home: social secruity number

4. SS#. (form and explanation of procedure) This is free!!!! Yippee!!! If you do this before the validation and or citizenship you will have to re do the name, if you are changing that. You can get a temporary # like a person on a work visa can get, this is the ATIN -link here-. You have to finalize it after the validation. Some offices will give you a hard time about it and will try to get you to have the cert. of cit. first and validation too. You don't have to do it this way, but we have opted to wait until last so that we have all the needed papers the first time through. We hope anyway. This also will not prove citizenship. If you go after validation but before Certificate of Citizenship or after *Certificate of Citizenship* this is what you need:
*US birth certificate (this is not going to do you any good as it is a mere formality and considered a "souvenir" paper as it is only a certificate saying your child was born in another country). Useless. Sometimes they take it and other times they do not. Especially if there is a name or date of birth change from USCIS info (pre COC).
*US passport or *Certificate of Citizenship* (COC) I have heard of people being refused with only a passport if the info is different than that of USCIS (pre COC).
* my driver's license
*a filled out SS card application
*validation court decree (if you changed names or date of birth and it no longer matches USCIS be prepared for them to reject the application until you get a COC or a new COC)

This should take 14 days. There is the possibility that they will have to verify your child's paperwork with USCIS and that will take an additional 14 days. We have that issue, likely because we changed the date of birth and we DO have the Certificate of Citizenship.

Notes on SS#:
While some have been refused a SS# based on not yet having the COC, you should be able to legally do this with a passport.
The birth certificate you get with the validation is a certificate of foreign birth and some offices will not accept it as a birth certificate. Many will make an acception if it comes WITH the validation.

*“Your Social Security Number and Card,” available at:
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10002.pdf*

* *Citizenship or immigration status: We can accept only certain
documents as proofof U.S. citizenship. These include: a U.S. birth certificate, U.S. consular
report of birth, U.S. passport, Certificate of Naturalization or Certificate
of Citizenship.

*“Proof of Citizenship / Naturalization,” available at:
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/hlp/isba/10/hlp-isba005-ctzn.htm***

We can accept most documents that show you were born in the U.S. If you are
a U.S. Citizen born outside the U.S., we need to see a document such as a:

  - U.S. consular report of birth,
  - U.S. passport,
  - Certificate of Naturalization, or
  - Certificate of Citizenship.