Originally Posted by atsak

No, not at all. Non resident aliens can be provided with US cards at the discretion of the issuing bank assuming their identity can be verified and they have a US address (which I do). The issue is the automated systems, because there happens to be overlap with my SIN and a previously issued SSN, flags the application as invalid and I can't find anyone to override it. I have verified this a couple times.

Now what I think you think I might be doing is presenting my Canadian SIN# as an SSN#. That *is* illegal. And that is most certainly not what I do. I approach the bank directly with my passport and a copy of my Canadian credit report.