Not to mention that if you are innocent, and the government wants to fuck with you in particular, they won't need to go through this dog and pony show to do so.

Not to mention that if you are innocent, and the government wants to fuck with you in particular, they won't need to go through this dog and pony show to do so. They'll just send a half-dozen masked men to disappear you and then say to anyone that asks that you were an illegal immigrant with an unpaid parking ticket from 2005. All of this stuff only matters if they are stupid enough to ever let you see the inside of a courtroom. And if you do, you're free to raise the obvious, believable defense that this is the flimsiest, most circumstantial of evidence imaginable. If that's the best evidence they have, you should ask for a bench trial, no judge with an above-room temperature IQ will convict you.