The recounting of a nearly eight-year-long effort by a Perry man in dealing with a bureaucratic nightmare to obtain birth certificates and Social Security numbers for his two children reads like a Kafka novel with an American catch-22 spin.
     James Santos' children, Wocawson Luszcz-Santos and Kamiwan Luszcz-Santos, who are now in their 20s, both have been trying to work and pursue their career interests but have been unable to do so. Wocawson, who had wanted to attend Loring Job Corps to learn about electronics, now cannot even go clamming. While he bought a town license, the state will not issue him a license because he doesn't have a Social Security number. With frustration over his limited choices, he points out, "I can't get on a bus or a plane, I can't vote, I can't leave the country, I can't have a bank account, I can't own property."
     In letter dated August 19, 2014, to U.S. Senator Susan Collins' staff assistant in Bangor, his sister Kamiwan wrote, "As an American, I am entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As an American without a Social Security number I am entitled to only the pursuit of happiness, seeing as life in our society is only possible with money, and I do not have liberty in any sense of the word."
     The saga began when Wocawson Luszcz-Santos was born in 1992 and Kamiwan Luszcz-Santos in 1994, both in Cambridge, Mass. However, their parents, James Santos and Margaret Luszcz, left the hospital each time before birth certificates were recorded. According to Santos, Luszcz had stopped participating in the hospital's prenatal program after she was asked about drug use. While she previously had used drugs, she had not since Santos had known her. Her dropping out of the program raised a red flag about her drug history, and the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) opened up an investigation. Santos told the DCF case worker to not continue with the case, and eventually after a two-month battle the department did drop it.
      The City of Cambridge, though, ended up never issuing the birth certificates because Santos and Luszcz had not signed them. Santos then attempted to have delayed records of birth issued, but the Cambridge city clerk's office would not issue the certificates until Santos' paternity of the two children could be determined and a court had ordered that the birth certificates be issued. Meanwhile, Margaret Luszcz left the family in 1995, and Santos raised the children on his own.
     Santos had sought assistance from Pine Tree Legal Assistance, first with attorney Charles Rudelitch in September 2010, but because of long delays and disagreements over how to proceed, another Pine Tree Legal attorney, Judson Esty-Kendall, took on the case. In 2011 he filed a complaint on behalf of Wocawson and Kamiwan in Calais District Court for a determination of paternity. The court finally ruled that Santos is their father in January 2012, and the delayed birth certificates were issued in April.
     However, Wocawson and Kamiwan were still not able to obtain Social Security numbers. Santos had given records for the children, from pre-natal to school, to the Bangor Social Security Administration office in June 2011. Representatives had indicated that they would respond to Santos' request in six to eight weeks, but it ended up being 11 months, when he was then told that Social Security numbers could not be issued. After Santos finally was able to bring the birth certificates to the Bangor office in July 2012 he was told that the children's records he had previously given to the office had been shredded. When he returned two weeks later with all of the children's records and the birth certificates, he was then told that since the birth certificates were late filings his children would have to wait a year before they could apply.
     He also was told by the Social Security office's assistant manager that the delayed birth certificates would not be accepted, even though the Social Security website states that a birth record amended after the age of 5 is acceptable evidence of U.S. citizenship. The Cambridge city clerk's office had issued a delayed birth certificate, while the Social Security office's assistant manager told Santos that a delayed certificate could not be considered an amended certificate.
Santos then sought assistance from U.S. Senator Susan Collins' Bangor office. The staff assistant there has been working with him but also provided some information that Santos says is not helpful, including that Wocawson and Kamiwan should apply for U.S. passports. Along with the cost involved, Santos expects the passports will be denied. Even if they were issued and submitted for obtaining Social Security numbers, he expects the numbers still could not be obtained. Of his children, Santos points out, "They don't want a passport, just a Social Security number."
     "I don't think the Bangor Social Security office has the competency to handle this," Santos says. "And if a senator's office can't straighten this out, what is the purpose of a senator if it isn't to serve the constituents?" Santos also has sought assistance from area state representatives.
     In her letter to Senator Collins' staff assistant, Kamiwan writes that while her birth certificate states when and where she was born and where both of her parents were born and is stamped by the City of Cambridge, it was not accepted by the Bangor Social Security office. She writes that she is "repulsed by the knowledge that my birth certificate was seen by the Social Security Administration on several occasions and I wasn't informed until April of this year that it is useless for proving citizenship."
     Kamiwan now has a one-month-old baby that she would like to be able to provide for, "but I can't do that without a number." She was an honors student at Washington Academy with an interest in music, but she has been unable to attend a music school without a Social Security number. "All of that's been taken away," she says.
     Santos, who is 71, is providing for his children and notes that if he passes away he cannot leave any property to them. "It goes to the town, and they have nothing."
     Expressing his frustration, he states, "She's 20 years old and she has a baby, my son is 22 and he can't even sell a clam. It's been in a senator's office for three and a half years."
     "This is going to go on forever," he says, as he casts his thoughts back over the nearly eight-year-long battle with no end in sight. "How can it be resolved?