From Emergency Message EM-21056:
... While mail continues to offer an additional channel for the public to communicate with us, you must discourage customers from mailing important documents that they should keep secure and maintain in their possession, such as driver’s licenses, passports, or immigration documents. If they prefer, customers may choose to mail us secondary evidence of identity and less sensitive material. ...
4 comments:
Reread the EM you linked. It says not to mail them, that's what in-person interviews are being scheduled for. The title of this post is incorrect.
Your title on the post is incorrect. If you read the EM you link, it says not to mail those important documents and that's what in-office appointments are available for.
Charles, this is wrong and you should issue a correction. The intent here is to open things up on the Social Security card front by allowing us to take secondary evidence such as certified medical records or work IDs instead of insisting on drivers' licenses or passports.
We already could take secondary evidence, but the policy required the person to wait 10 days while they made an attempt to obtain primary evidence first.
https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0110210420
"If primary evidence is not available (available means the document exists and the applicant can access or obtain it within 10 business days), request one of the following secondary evidence documents:"
It was a silly, pointless technicality that they've finally (at least temporarily) abandoned. Also, it's a move towards common sense in directing FOs to not ask people to mail incredibly hard to replace immigration documents, but to schedule them an in-person interview first.
It does not mean that suddenly SSA is now accepting photocopies of your marriage license to approve you for widow's benefits.
This was a huge problem, ignored for more than a year by the agency. I have people I work with trying to replace the original documents SSA lost and they did not even get the SSA problem fixed! What a farce.
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