October 24, 2014
I’ve been making myself nervous to go to the social security office, fearing that they would give us a hard time, not understanding his status and his paperwork. I looked up what I would need on the social security website for a noncitizen, and whether he would be eligible, and when that got a bit confusing, I finally went to our godsend page, Visa Journey. One quick search for social security number brought up a page with everything we need to bring and all the steps we need to take to ensure success in securing a SSN. They had the link to the website proving that with a K1 visa he was eligible for a SSN, as well as the application and information on what supporting documents to bring; there was one document they told us to bring that I never would’ve known existed, the I-94.
So we planned to go this morning; I would go to work late. Parking was easy, thankfully, and we walked to 400 Poydras Street, a massive downtown office building. We took the elevator to the 5th floor, and were met with a security checkpoint, that wasn’t really a big deal, but I obviously must’ve had wide-eyes because the security guards were like, ‘relax, I know folks in uniform get a bad rap, but we’re not gonna do anything to you.’
The whole experience, in fact, was painless. We got there when it was supposed to have opened, but obviously they let people in before they open the service windows because the waiting room was PACKED. I thought we’d be there forever, but we took a number, and within about 15 minutes, we were called to the window. The lady was super polite, asked for his supporting documents and the application he had filled out. She typed it up, printed out a copy, certified that “under the offense of perjury” everything he wrote to the best of his knowledge is accurate, and then handed us a paper saying he should have his social security card mailed to him in 2 weeks.
And just like that we were out of there and back at the car by like 9:40. All that apprehension for nothing. Probably one of the easiest, most painless steps out of the entire process thus far. And one more thing checked off the immensely long list of things ‘to do.’
like black butterflies 