How many illegals receive social security numbers?
Executive summary
Public records show a sharp rise in Social Security numbers (SSNs) issued to noncitizens in recent years—roughly 590,000 in fiscal year 2022 and about 964,000 in 2023, with reporting around 1 million in some recent fiscal years—but the available sources do not support a clean answer to “how many illegals receive Social Security numbers,” because the Social Security Administration (SSA) issues SSNs only to noncitizens who are legally authorized to work and unauthorized immigrants normally receive IRS Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) instead [1] [2] [3].
1. The data we have: noncitizen SSN issuance has climbed
Government and press reporting document a sharp increase in SSNs issued to noncitizens: EBE (Electronic Birth Enrollment/Enrollment by Enumeration program) or SSA-linked data show 590,000 noncitizens received SSNs in FY2022 and about 964,000 in FY2023, and several outlets describe roughly one million noncitizen SSNs in recent fiscal years, marking a substantial uptick from earlier years [1] [2].
2. What the SSA’s rules and programs actually do: work-authorized noncitizens get SSNs
By statute and SSA practice, Social Security numbers are granted to noncitizens who are authorized by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to work in the United States; the electronic process that accelerates issuance—the EBE partnership between SSA and DHS—was launched in October 2017 to allow DHS vetting to trigger SSN issuance without an in-person SSA visit [1] [2] [3].
3. The “how many are undocumented” gap: the sources don’t say that
None of the cited reporting provides an SSA figure explicitly counting how many of those newly issued SSNs belong to people who lack legal status; indeed, Poynter’s fact-checking reminds readers that people ineligible for SSNs—those illegally present without work authorization—are issued ITINs by the IRS if they need to file taxes, underscoring that SSN issuance is generally tied to work authorization rather than mere presence [3].
4. Why the counting is contested: politics, audits, and methods
Political actors have seized on the raw SSN issuance numbers to claim mass granting of SSNs to “illegals,” a narrative amplified by high-profile commentators [2]. Audits and internal checks complicate those claims: a 2023 government audit cited by reporting found SSA correctly processed noncitizen SSN cases 99.8% of the time, and SSA research has developed analytic methods that use mismatches between survey-reported SSNs and administrative records to estimate unauthorized populations—showing the technical difficulty of converting SSN counts directly into unauthorized-population counts [2] [4].
5. Practical reality: many noncitizen SSNs reflect temporary or permanent legal work authorization
Experts and official materials repeatedly emphasize that the SSNs counted in SSA statistics include lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylees, and temporary workers who are legally authorized to work—categories the SSA and actuaries separately track when assessing program finances and eligibility [5] [6]. That administrative framework means headline totals of “noncitizen SSNs” largely reflect people with some form of legal authorization to work rather than an unvetted issuance to unauthorized migrants [3].
6. Bottom line and limits of available evidence
The best, sourced statement that can be made from the available reporting is: recent SSA/EBE-linked data show roughly 0.6–1.0 million SSNs were issued to noncitizens in single recent fiscal years (FY2022–FY2023), but publicly available sources do not provide a defensible count of how many “illegals” (i.e., people without work authorization) received SSNs because SSA issues SSNs to those authorized to work and use of ITINs is the usual route for those without authorization; estimating unauthorized holders requires specialized linkage and inference methods that are not summarized as a single count in the cited reporting [1] [2] [3] [4].