The Social Security Administration reversed course Friday, rescinding a directive that required Maine parents of newborns to register their children at Social Security offices instead of filling out a form at the hospital.
The mandate was widely panned as being cumbersome, unfair and inefficient, and would have caused some parents to have to drive hours for an appointment to get a Social Security number for their child.
The directive also would have terminated electronic filing of death records at funeral homes.
Acting Social Security Administration Commissioner Lee Dudek issued a public apology letter Friday, less than one day after the change was first reported by the Press Herald and Sun Journal.
The letter indicates Maine was the only state affected, but it does not include any explanation for the abrupt decision to end the decades old registration process, or for the sudden reversal.
“I recently directed Social Security employees to end two contracts which affected the good people of the state of Maine,” Dudek wrote.
“In retrospect, I realize that ending these contracts created an undue burden on the people of Maine, which was not the intent. For that, I apologize and have directed that both contracts be immediately reinstated. (Both birth and death contracts) continue in place for every state and were not affected. As a leader, I will admit my mistakes and make them right.”
The Social Security Administration did not respond to questions Thursday or Friday about the reason for ending and reinstating Maine’s enumeration program.
Maine officials said the federal agency also did not provide any explanation when notifying the state earlier this week that it had canceled the contracts allowing new parents to fill out a form at a hospital and also register deaths electronically.
“The SSA has just notified Maine DHHS that it is rescinding the terminations of the Maine contracts for Enumeration at Birth (EAB) and Electronic Death Records (EDR) effective immediately,” Alisa Morton, spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, wrote in a notice circulated Wednesday.
The “Enumeration at Birth” process, which has been in effect since the late 1980s, allows parents to check a box on a form shortly after birth at a hospital or other health care setting and receive a Social Security card in the mail.
The ease of the enumeration process has meant that the vast majority of children — 99% according to the Social Security Administration — were registered by filling out the form.
THEORIES, BUT NO EXPLANATION
Maine was the only state affected by the change, fueling suspicions that it was part of a retaliation campaign. The whiplash of the program being ended and then reinstated comes on the heels of a public fight between President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills.
Mills stood up to Trump during a National Governors Association meeting in February when the president threatened to pull federal education funding for Maine over a state policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports. Mills said the policy complies with state law and that Trump could not unilaterally punish Maine by taking away funding.
“See you in court,” Mills said at the White House event.
Mills’ office did not respond to questions from the Press Herald about the Social Security change.
Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, in an interview with the Press Herald, lambasted the Trump administration, calling it “chaotic, disorganized and incompetent.”
“My suspicion is this was a way to subtly go after birthright citizenship,” Pingree said.
Trump has said he would end birthright citizenship — which is a provision enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees people born in the United States are automatically considered citizens. Trump has said babies of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S. should not be granted American citizenship.
“Let’s say both parents are in the U.S. under a green card, maybe they are engineers or doctors. They go to the Social Security Office, and they are told, ‘I’m sorry you don’t get a Social Security number for your baby because we don’t consider your baby an American citizen,” Pingree said. “It would be a backhanded way to deny citizenship.”
Pingree said she doesn’t have evidence that was the intent of canceling the contracts, but the Trump administration has proven to be reluctant or unwilling to comply with court orders.
In the early days of the administration, Trump signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship, but a federal court blocked it from going into effect, with the judge in the case calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said in a written statement that he’s glad the administration changed course. But, he said, “this rapid reversal has raised concerns among Maine people and left many unanswered questions about the Social Security Administration’s motivations.”
King said he and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, are asking the SSA to provide a briefing next week about what happened.
“Maine deserves an explanation,” King said.
‘THEY HAD NO CLUE’
While the federal contracts have been reinstated, it did cause some temporary chaos in birthing centers.
Brad White, whose wife, Ashton, gave birth to their son this week at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, filled out the form for a birth certificate and checked the box requesting a Social Security number.
A short time later, however, his wife got a call stating that the rules had changed, and they would have to go into the Social Security office in person.
White then tried calling a number for Social Security headquarters for an explanation. An automated greeting told him the wait would be 120 minutes to talk to a person. He hung up and instead tried to get through to the local office in Bangor.
“They had no clue what I was talking about,” said White, who lives in Bangor.
White then brought it up with a hospital official, who showed him a letter they received from Theresa Roberts at the Maine’s Office of Vital Records informing hospitals of the change.
White said he was prepared to schedule an appointment at the local Social Security office Friday morning, but since the change has been rescinded, he doesn’t know if that still needs to happen. If he does have to go into a physical office, it’s only 3 miles from their home in Bangor. But he said many parents in rural Maine don’t have that luxury.
“They keep talking about efficiency,” he said. “This seemed to be something that worked incredibly efficiently, and they broke it overnight.”
Kathleen Romig, an analyst with the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said in a Friday blog post that the program saves money, and canceling it would have wasted taxpayer dollars. Romig said “receiving batches of birth and death data from states automatically is highly efficient.”
“They simplify critical administrative functions, saving significant staff time and money,” Romig said.
DOGE INVOLVEMENT?
A different set of Social Security contracts in other states were canceled as part of an initiative by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is advised by billionaire Elon Musk.
Documents posted on the DOGE website show the cancellation of contracts for Enumeration at Birth in five states, Arizona, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico and Rhode Island, and the Northern Mariana Islands. But unlike in Maine, the contracts in those five states were related to collection of race and ethnicity data.
Romig, in her Friday blog post, confirmed that those DOGE cuts were intended to eliminate Social Security’s pilot program involving race and ethnicity data, and the cancelations were part of the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — programs.
The Enumeration at Birth program does not typically collect race and ethnicity information, but those five states were participating in a pilot program that had until now collected that data. Under the Biden administration, a 2023 Social Security “action plan” listed the lack of race and ethnicity data on the birth forms as a shortcoming, especially as a tool for researchers, with a goal of expanding the number of states collecting that data.
Maine was not one of the states gathering race and ethnicity data from the birth forms, and it’s not clear why Maine was apparently singled out for a cancellation of the entire program.
On Thursday, the news of the cancellation drew swift criticism from medical providers.
There are eight Social Security offices across the state, and the change would have required significant travel for some new parents.
Dr. Joe Anderson, advocacy chair of the Maine chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said Thursday that eliminating the program “creates a lot of unnecessary and unfair burdens for families.”
“It makes absolutely no sense to me at all to do this,” Anderson said.
Staff Writer Eric Russell contributed to this report.
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