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.
UPDATE: On demands for identification in general.
C'mon, Grim, you're better than this. Linking an X>/b> post whose poster is making a bald, unsubstantiated allegation and then tossing in the "Nazi" slur as if that proves his point?
ReplyDeleteA 30 second Startpage search on the "prepared to provide proof of citizenship" turned up this bit of dishonesty providing the "quote:" https://x.com/GrabienMedia/status/2011843099387916724
Playing the 15 second video at that link reveals the quoted phrase being the core of the videographer's conclusory question to Noem. Noem's response was in every situation, we're doing targeted enforcement. If we are on a target and doing an operation, there may be individuals surrounding that criminal that we may be asking who they are and why they're there and having them validate their identity. That's what we've always done in asking people who they are so that we know who's in those surroundings. And if they are breaking our federal laws, we will detain them as well until we run that processing..
Not a word, not a syllable, not a minim about asking for proof of citizenship. Just what police--including Minneapolis' and Minnesota's, when Frey and Walz permit them to function--do in every situation: ask for identification. Not proof of citizenship.
Eric Hines
The link was provided by a friend, but this seems to be the exchange. She was asked about carrying proof of citizenship, which could be part of any confusion.
Deletehttps://www.nbcchicago.com/video/news/national-international/noem-proof-of-citizenship/3876717/
Yes, the second questioner in your NBCChicago link had the conclusory question to which Noem answered. A dishonest question by the questioner followed by an honest answer that had nothing to do with demanding proof of citizenship.
ReplyDeleteEric Hines
Yah, well........Grim is kind of a 'suspicious person' anyway, based on his pizza-toppings preferences.....
ReplyDeleteHeh. I don’t even remember what I ordered. We were at Mellow Mushroom, which has many interesting options.
DeleteI had never heard of the Mellow Mushroom restaurant and just figured, given the smaller rural area I live in now, that the one the former VES (now fully grown and married) and husband took me to was a one-off. You have to admit the name is truly of a local, hole-in-the-strip-mall pizza spot. I *can't* believe how widespread the franchise is...hell, just that it's a franchise!
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty good food with a wide selection of options on the menu, but the drinks are quite spendy.
0>;~}
So the chain was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1974 (just like me). It didn’t used to be upscale or pricey; when I was in college you could get a pie and a pitcher of Guinness for under ten bucks. Sometime after that they decided to bid for a richer clientele, with great success; it’s now too expensive for me except for special occasions.
DeleteI remember it as a "much better than Pizza K" college pizza place, but even then not as cheap as Pizza K. (I liked the mushroom, sausage, and olive, but I'm considered a bit benighted when it comes to pizza preferences.)
DeleteLittleRed1
Grim! What a pleasant surprise! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteNot sure which part of that was a surprise, but you are certainly welcome.
DeleteIt seems to me that the U.S. has generally moved into a somewhat different position than the civil/criminal environment of prior decades, thanks in substantial part to Biden's slack border enforcement.... Given that laxity, plus the rampant welfare & benefits fraud schemes that have robbed the paying citizenry of billions of dollars, as well as the rates of murder/personal injury/property damage & thievery, perpetrated by illegal non-citizens (any/all of which would not have happened "but for..."), perhaps some new or reformed evidence of legal presence may be called for?
ReplyDeleteIf cost is a consideration, I note that you can obtain PP photos at any Staples for $18-$25, and that a new PP application is only $165 (2 combined fees), or $65 for a PCard.
It seems to me that if someone can afford a mobile phone and service (as even the nigh-indigent seemingly can), that someone should fairly easily afford the cost of a U.S. passport or card.
Next up: mandatory biometric identity scanning, verified with mobile ID readers, as evidence of citizenship? Don't blink: it's here....
Dang it. That was ColoComment..., up there ↑
DeleteGlobal Entry is also cost-effective: it's $100 for five years, although you have to pass an interview establishing that you need the service with DHS.
DeleteThe Real ID program shows the issues, though. It's got everything it would need to just include on the document what your citizenship/residence status is. All that information is on file. But the resistance to having it listed on the ID was so intense -- I'm guessing as a hedge in case voter ID laws somehow got past the courts and legislative resistance to that -- that the information isn't on the card. It's just in a database somewhere.
...perhaps some new or reformed evidence of legal presence may be called for?
DeleteI'd be likely to strongly oppose this, depending on the details of a proposal on offer. We have enough laws on the books that allow law enforcement to demand identification under limited circumstances. We're already on that slippery slope; there's no need to advance onto the steeper part. The idea of biometric data being freely available to government is already to large a step toward that steeper part. I've said who I am. In the relevant jurisdictions, I've shown my [driver license]. In Texas, I've advised the officer that I'm armed (and shown my LTC if he asks) if I happen to be armed when I'm stopped. That's far enough. Want more? Get a warrant. Want proof of citizenship? Charge me with doing something that requires citizenship to do. Simply being on the street, even in close proximity of someone being targetedly arrested isn't that, though that proximity certainly warrants the law enforcement officer demanding to know who I am, or at least who I claim to be.
Eric Hines
While I agree with you, to some degree I don’t think that they will even have to ask for new authority. It’s legal to film anyone in public, and so it’s legal for anyone to capture your face. Facial recognition is already good enough commercially to do most of the work. They don’t need to consult a database; the internet already knows.
DeleteTo some degree that bothers me less, though. If I meet a local cop, there’s a pretty good chance that they will know who I am without having to ask. This kind of makes everything like a small town, I suppose, in that you can expect to be recognized by the people you encounter— police included.
The question was obviously asked in furtherance of the misinformation pushed by Democrats that ICE is accosting people at random and taking into custody anybody who can't prove citizenship rather than working from lists of people who have already been through the process and have removal orders. Almost all of the other people picked up who aren't already on an order are identified when the specific targets are found because, surprise surprise, illegal aliens tend to associate with other illegal aliens. It appears out of the 600,000+ apprehensions by ICE in 2025 about 160 were found to be improper. You could argue that the number should be closer to zero but I would say that goal would be far more achievable if "sanctuary cities" were cooperating in the removal of illegal alien criminals rather than forcing ICE to find them among the general population.
ReplyDeleteIf I meet a local cop....
ReplyDeleteThat works well in small communities, but in larger places like the Dallas Metroplex, of which Plano is a suburb, the cops don't know many of us, and most of us don't know the cops in general. That's added to by the police not having regular beats; at least in Plano, the department rotates its patrol officers through the several neighborhoods.
And, as you say, a vast array of personal data, including biometric, already is publicly available through a variety of public sources. Government has no need of a single, centralized database of us citizens as individuals. As major public figures like Tulsi Gabbard, along with any number of more private citizens, have experienced, it's too easy to get mistakenly put onto a government database, and too hard to get the erroneous entry removed.
Eric Hines
It's fair to ask in specific circumstances, such as at a border crossing, or showing whether you have the right to work at a particular job (where a green card is often just as good anyway). But I agree that general calls to show your papers are deeply worrisome.
ReplyDeleteA surprising fact that I learned in grad school from friends who were studying from abroad is that employers are legally forbidden from asking about citizenship. They’re required to ask about legal status to work in the country, but they can’t ask any questions about citizenship: it’s not legal to discriminate on the basis of national origin, so they can’t even inquire about it.
DeleteA quasi exception is jobs that require a security clearance. Those require citizenship. But you don’t have to ask about the citizenship; it suffices to require the clearance.
DeleteSeesm odd to me as your citizenship may or may not speak to your national *origin*. Not sure how that's really covered by the wording of the actual law- probably an "abundance of caution" corporate lawyer rule.
DeleteSomewhat amusingly, there are reports that anti-ICE insurgents have stopped people driving SUVs that look like ICE vehicles and demanded the driver prove that they aren't working for ICE.
ReplyDelete- Tom
Yeah, that's not cool either; and if they're wearing masks while doing it, a Federal crime. That issue dates to a very old law intending to prevent highwaymen on Federal roads; it became highly obscured during the COVID era. (In the South, there are often also state laws against it due to anti-Klan legislation, but that's unlikely in MN.)
Delete