Millions of legal immigrants may not be able to work after the U.S. Social Security Bureau quietly enacts rule changes to stop automatically issuing social insurance numbers to them.

The Beyond Entry Program is an agreement between the Social Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, where U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will provide Social Security with authorized or naturalized information to applicants.

The plan began with the first Trump administration in 2017.

Without any public notice, on March 19, the program was suspended, affecting millions of immigrants each year and being burdened by the Social Security Administration, as these applicants now have to visit the Social Security Office and apply separately to receive a Social Security number.

After the freeze, the Trump administration issued a memorandum on April 15 aimed at preventing undocumented immigrants from obtaining social security benefits, but provided no questions.

Trump and Elon Musk are former billionaires of what is known as "government efficiency" (Doge) and former leaders falsely claim that the plans are used to attract unauthorized immigrants to vote for Democrats.

"Unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for Medicare or Social Security pensions. There is also no evidence that unauthorized immigrants have fraudulently obtained large amounts of benefits," wrote Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, an economics professor at the Boston College School of Economics, in a blog post.

Lee Thacker moved to Southwest Minnesota with his wife (American). After getting married, he applied for a job authorization card while handling the application for permanent residence.

At the end of April 2025, when a 52-year-old from Pontypridd, Wales received his job authorization card, he began applying for a job and received a job offer. After he failed to receive his Social Security number, “I lost my job,” Tucker said.

"I need a background check, and the company that does the check needs a Social Security number, and the company itself has a policy that does not hire people without a Social Security number. So I have the right to work legally, but in reality, I can't because no one without a Social Security number will hire me."

He noted that the Work Authorization Form I-765 still has a checkbox that can be filled in to receive the Social Security Number card, which he did. He paid $260 for the employment authorization card application and hopes to receive it within two weeks of receiving the work authorization card.

Thacker wasn't told why he was informed of the change until about half an hour after visiting the Social Security Bureau field office.

In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid $25.7 billion in taxes to Social Security despite not being eligible for benefits.

"It certainly affects a lot of people. We are trying to warn all our clients," said Jennifer Bade, an immigration attorney based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Bade explains the problems and difficulties faced by immigrants when visiting the Social Security Management site office, including time spent on immigrants who need a Social Security number to start work, open a bank account or get a loan, as well as problems and delays.

"The suspension of the program is meaningless," Bade added. "It's all about attacking immigrants and there's no real benefit. There's really no benefit in suspending the program."

Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Commission urged the Social Security Agency to reverse its decision to freeze the plan.

The late Congressman Gerald Connolly, the acting social security agency approved the pause despite the impact on the suspension of the plan, according to the committee’s ranking members.

Hope Rudasill, of North Carolina, said her husband was kept anonymously for fear of revenge and recently applied for a job authorization card, but did not expect a delay in receiving a Social Security number because he was told it would be issued automatically when the application was submitted.

"My husband needs a valid Social Security number before even considering applying, because most employers need a valid Social Security number. This also prevented him from applying for a driver's license, which limits his ability to surround himself independently."

“We were unable to open a joint bank account, which was not only an inconvenience to manage finances, but also caused challenges when we went to adjust the status interview (an important part of applying for legal permanent residence), because shared bank accounts were a key part of proving that we built our lives together and did not make the document more stressful.”

The rule changes come as billionaire Musk pushes misinformation on immigration and social security benefits, including touting data from enumerating the Beyond Entry Program, falsely claiming it is evidence of fraud.

In fiscal year 2024, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service approved 3.24 million initial employment authorization documents.

According to the Social Security Bureau memorandum, the cost of issuing Social Security numbers through the program in the same year was $8 per issuance, while the cost of field offices was $55.80.

These on-site offices are also reducing employee jobs as the Social Security Bureau attempts to cut staff by at least 12%, and Doge has terminated leases for at least 47 offices of the agency. In addition to the new phone restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, the freeze could add more pressure to the agency’s staff, which would require individuals to make 1.93 million additional trips to the Social Security field office each year.

"I hope I can work within a few months of applying for permanent residence, once I get the Employment Authorization Card," Lee Thacker added. "If I know that I will no longer send the Social Security Card automatically, I will have face-to-face visits shortly after I get the Employment Authorization Card. There must be patience to expect to receive their Social Security Card. If this is a permanent change, the local SSA office will receive more face-to-face visits at once when reducing staffing."

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

"The Enumeration (EBE) process is currently suspended by the non-citizen authorization of work (I-765) (I-765) and the newly naturalized U.S. Citizens (N-400) (n-400) and the agency is evaluating its enumeration strategies and procedures while using it for EBE's eBE's eBE Enperipations. Submitted on March 18, 2025."