help please ins has lost my file

[izzy]

hello i hope someone can help me i have been on the phone all day with ins. I came here with my mother and stepfather in 1958 and i was 5 years old i have worked gone to school here since then and i am now 53.
anyway i have lung cancer and copd and decided to try and get my disability i was approved by social security for the medical part but now they want me to prove i am here in the us legally and they stated that since 911 their policy has changed and they do not keep that information in their system since when i got my ss card was so long ago.
so anyway i called ins because when i went to look for my permanent resident card it somehow got mutilated and i called them to get the a number since i could not read it on my card. Well they informed me they have no record of me and possibly my records have been lost. They said for me to fill out a form to get a new permanent residency card and start like i just came here. This process takes a long time and i do not have long to live as 2 years is the time the doctors have given me and i am on Spam 24hrs a day so it is hard for me to even go to the field office. I do not understand how they can just lose someones records is there anything i can do. I feel that maybe they did not know what they were doing when they were looking up the information maybe. Would the portugese consulate in washington dc have any info maybe i have just been crying and so upset all evening and do not know what to do any suggestions would be so appreciated

thank you

[vilkatis]

.

Did you and your parents come to the U.S. legally? That piece of information didn't make your post.

There should be a lot of documentation to support legal immigration, and it should be on record; it's nearly impossible to 'lose' it (although not unknown). My mother came in from Berlin in 1956. Even though there were some glitches over the years, she was always able to give enough information so the original immigration records could be found and referred to.

Claiming they ''they do not keep that information in their system'' just doesn't wash. Especially after 911 it would be kept.

Even if your records are 'lost,' the files on your parents should be there as a place to begin.

All that, and there have to be some documents over the years where you used your permanent resident card number ... so try to track them down and get it that way.

-- vilkatis

[izzy]

yes my mother and stepfather and i came in at brooklyn naval shipyard where we were processed. My stepfather was in the us marine corp and he was and is an american citizen. He did not ever legally adopt me he married my mother in tangiers and her and i were born in portugal. the us consulate in tangiers is where they married etc. And now there is no longer a brooklyn naval shipyard nor do we have a consulate in tangiers anymore. Ins can find my mothers records but not mine and they state that i am not in her records. They even tried putting her a number and changing the last digit higher and lower as someone had suggested saying my a number would be one less or one higher than hers. But that resulted in nothing as well. I never had to use my a number for anything in my life and really never even knew anything about it as my mother never told me anything about immigration and what i had to do so now i am at a lose. I called the national archives and they stated that all records from 1958 forward are with ins. The social security office says they did not keep those records back then and possibly that i did not have to show an alien card when i got my social security card in 1971. I am wondering if i take my mothers passport from 1958 to ins if they can find something that way. Also is there a possibility that maybe one of my stepfathers adopted me unknown to me and that would make me an automatic us citizen at age 14 i am 53 years old now and have been here since 1958?

[vilkatis]

.

Wow. I'm not sure I can help.

If I was in your place, here are some ideas about what I would try to do:

Get in contact with the Marine Corp and the U.S. Navy (the Marines are specialized branch under the Navy). You will need as much information on your stepfather as you can find.

It sounds like he was an American-born serviceman(?).

He did not adopt you, but if you came with his wife and were processed through a military facility, some record of that should still exist in military archives. Should. No assurance ... and, I don't know which ones or how to go about determining which.

If you came in as a dependent of a mlitary serviceman, there should be records about support for you. Housing arrangements, doctors visits (your medical records for innoculations, dentist, for examples).

There are several types of records possible. Did you ever live on a military base? Were you ever admitted to a base hospital?

Use your imagination for anything about your life that would have been entered into military records.

Somewhere your permanent resident card number was probably used.



Regarding adoption, you should have a very narrow list of people who might have done so. Narrow down to which cities and what time frames and you can contact the respective Bureau's of Census (or the equivalent .. they all use different names and fall into different chain-of-authority). You'll be looking for yourself under possible names, as well as the records of your adoptive father & your mother.

Being adopted without knowing it seems a long shot, But, hey, it's a big, interesting world and therefore possible.


Something else. If your family ever used public assistance for anything, there should be records of you with the local agencies.


You must have attended public shools; maybe military ones. See if they have records.


Now here's the bad news. You might not have entered the U.S. legally. If the proper paperwork wasn't done properly (or at all) when you came into the U.S., you may not have legal status ... just a lucky streak of not being noticed for 48 years.

I don't know how, but you need to imagine how you can investigate that possibility.

If this is your case, you're going to need to document that you actually lived here and paid into Social Security all these years. The government will assume you just arrived and are trying to pass with someone else's identity. The burden of proof will be on you.

Somehow you will need to prove that you actually came to the U.S. in 1958 and that you remained and obtained a SS number through good faith. This is ONLY if your entry was originally not fully legal.

-- vilkatis