First of all, we don’t even issue a “proof of citizenship” ID. The closest thing is a passport, which most Americans don’t have. If you’re in the Global Entry trusted travelers’ program, they issue an ID that mentions your citizenship too, but that’s by-the-way to the point of the program. Even fewer Americans are enrolled in that than are holders of passports.
Your driver’s license definitely avoids mentioning your citizenship. Real ID compliance means that it’s on file somewhere, but not in a way you can carry around with you. A voter registration card should be proof of citizenship, but we all know very well that it isn’t.
So is the idea that we should all be carrying notarized copies of our birth certificates everywhere? What is she even talking about?
Second, I’m old enough to remember when movies and television regularly featured police who demanded “your papers, please,” to people walking down the street. Sometimes these were East Germans; sometimes they were Soviets. Sometimes they were Nazis. In Casablanca, they were the police of occupied French territories collaborating with the Nazis.
What they never were was the good guys. Even as the bad guys, they never wore masks.
This isn’t how America works. However, how about a demonstration of American-ness in lieu of the nonexistent identification cards? I have a very clear idea of how an American would respond to such a demand. Nothing is more American than telling a government agent to stuff it and to mind their own business. Defiance of overreaching authority in the name of liberty should be sufficient evidence; if such a one isn’t an American, at least they have the right makings to be.
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