We brought our son home from India in October and our finalization (Adoption Day) was in December.

We tried to apply for a Social Security Number for our son, but were rejected because they say we need a Certificate of Citizenship before they will issue the SS number.

We filed form N-600 (Application for Certificate of Citizenship) with USCIS and received a letter saying it may take up to 6 months for them to issue the certificate.

In the meantime, we obviously need to file taxes and so we need a social security number for our son.

Has anyone else delt with this?  If so, what did you do?

Hi Chuck,

We ran into the same problem. We applied for our son’s SS card with his status as “legal alien.” We did this because his finalization was on 12/10/09, and we worried that if we waited for a passport or citizenship certificate, we wouldn’t have time to get the SS card by April 15th. We waited about 8 weeks and went back to the SS office to inquire about the card. Apparently, when you file for a SS card as a “legal alien” USCIS must validate all supporting documents. So even though we had Manu’s greed card with us, the SS office has to wait for USCIS to confirm it is indeed a real card. Well, for whatever reason, they are dragging their feet, and we still don’t have the SS number. Like you, we submitted the N-600 to obtain a temporary tax ID number. Surprisingly that showed up in only about 3 weeks, and just last weekend I finished our taxes with that number. My understanding is that, if for some reason you do not get it in time, you’ll need to either file for an extension, or file as normal and then file an amended return once you get the SS number. I think you’ll get the number in time though.

We have since applied for Manu’s passport as a means of proving citizenship. We’ll apply for the USCIS certificate after we get our refund.

I am adopting from Foster Care and there was an issue with my (foster) daughters SS#. I already filed my taxes, but my accountant will do an amendment to my taxes now that I have her SS#.

The IRS has a form you can fill out to get a special # for a child placed for adoption but not yet finalized.  It is similar to a SS# but specific for this sort of issue.  Apparently it takes 4-8 weeks to get the # - much faster than waiting on a SS#

Hello,

This is an update to my previous post.

It took 3 to 4 months for USCIS to send us Derin’s Certificate of Citizenship, and about 2 months to get his social security card.