Friday, April 3, 2009

Well, !(*#$!

E-Verify went into effect today. My passport (for which I presented a birth certificate to the U.S. State Department) is no longer sufficient proof that I am legally entitled to work in the United States UPDATE: satisfies Uncle Sam but not my new employer.

They require a Social Security Administration-issued card. Which I had, once, somewhere, but can't find anywhere. No, it's not in my wallet--the SSA tells you not to carry it with you. It should be with my birth certificate/passport/car title/etc, but it's not. I've been through every box of paper in my apartment, and it's nowhere. I think the last time I saw it was 2003, or four moves ago. ("How did you get your last job?" "They never asked for it--I filled in the the I-9 form and faxed it to them.")

I can get a replacement...sometime, eventually, cards are mailed out of Baltimore in the order the applications are received. The E-Verifying has to be done before I can start work.

Yeah, I'm too stupid to live. I fully expect when I call and ask them what I'm supposed to do they will tell me not bother to show up, they will find someone else. UPDATE: This is someone else's problem now. :)

I wonder how much it would cost to get the guys who sell fake documents to illegal aliens to make me up one with my real number on it...hell, how do you find these people?

UPDATE: USCIS puts the I-9 directions online, where I can see it.

3 comments:

Amy said...

If you go to your local SS office (I don't know where there are any on the East side, but there IS one on 84th and Forest Home), they can give you a print out that serves as your SS card until you get it.

I know because I needed it for something, after I got married, and they said it would be acceptable.

HeatherRadish said...

I'm not sure if the receipt is good enough for E-Verify, as it only shows I applied...meanwhile, if I was trying to steal someone else's identity to work illegally or hide from law enforcement, I would have a fake card that no one would question. :P

The Department of Education sends me a form monthly with my SSN on it; my W-2 and 1099 forms from last year have my SSN. But I can't find a copy of the new I-9 (you have to be a business to download it from the SSA) to see what other documents might be acceptable to prove I'm using the SSN I'm entitled to use.

Frustrating. If I'd had any idea the passport was no longer sufficient I'd have looked for the stupid card and applied for the replacement as soon as I got laid off...and I get emails almost daily about E-Verify from assorted conversative groups, so I've no one to blame but myself.

Amy said...

UPDATE: This is someone else's problem now. :)

This doesn't mean you didn't get the job, does it?