Whitney Wimbish has written a piece for The American Prospect predicting that the Social Security Administration will end enumeration at birth, the current process that almost automatically assigns a Social Security number to every child born in the U.S. Instead, parents would have to go through some application process. The point would be to prevent assigning Social Security numbers to the children of non-citizens.
This could happen but there are obvious obstacles. Social Security isn’t remotely ready for the workload. Parents would be frustrated by the process. It’s all unconstitutional anyway. The 14th Amendment clearly says that virtually all children born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens.
The Supreme Court has said the courts can’t issue nationwide injunctions. Great. There are thousands of Social Security attorneys around the country ready to adjudicate this in every district in the country for the Equal Access to Justice Act fees. Easy money. By the time this issue is finally before the Supreme Court, the Trump Administration will wish it had been dealing with a nationwide injunction.
Where is the unconstitutionality of not automatically assigning a newborn an SSN at the hospital ? Parents will just have to apply outside of the hospital. Inconvenient yes, unconstitutional, no.
ReplyDeleteDumb to end EAB. Could require parents to put their SSNs on the form opting in to EAB.
ReplyDeleteSocial Security does not make citizenship determinations. We only utilize evidence obtained from primary sources. The bigger question is if USCIS or the State department are ready for that since they are the agencies that make citizenship determinations.
ReplyDeleteThe wheel on the EAJA bus go round and round,
ReplyDeleteRound and round, round and round.
The wheel on the EAJA bus go round and round,
Up and down the courts.
To 11:34 The issue arises if they refuse to issue a number/card to someone who is a child born in the US who asserts citizenship on that basis. Once the application is refused, ostensibly because of lack of citizenship of a parent, that would be when you file the action in USDC.
ReplyDeleteAnd to accomplish this, the Administration is willing to make it inconvenient for the parents of the nearly four million children born each year in the US to those where there is no question of citizenship without regard to birthright claims. And to create yet another task for people in the already understaffed DO to handle on a case by case basis.
Just plain stupid.