4 ms·

See: 8 U.S.C. § 1304(e) : "Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of

See: 8 U.S.C. § 1304(e) : "Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d)." [1] So aliens are indeed required to carry papers at all times. The balance between the rights of citizens and the obligations of aliens comes in the form of probable cause. It's similar to how a cop can't pull you over and just randomly search your car without reason, but if he has probable cause, then suddenly he can. An ICE officer can't just detain somebody for having an accent or whatever, but if they have probable cause to think the person may not be a citizen then they have a substantial amount of leverage to affirm that. Probable cause has been tested somewhat rigorously in the courts and really means probable cause and not the knee-jerk obvious abuses like 'he's brown!' [1] - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1304 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1304

convolvatron 1y ago
the Supreme Court has recently determined, in Noem v. Perdomo, that racial profiling by ICE is indeed completely .. acceptable? idk what the right word for 'legal but not legal' is.
- Izkata 1y ago
  That ruling wasn't based on race, it was based on a whole bunch of factors (including: high amount of illegal immigrants in the area in question, jobs and locations that attract illegal immigrants due to not needing paperwork, etc). It was also not final, it was temporary pending another appeal.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    The ruling was just ”let’s play for time, this is looking fun and interesting. Keep it up team!”
matthewdgreen 1y ago
You are describing rules that pertain to non-citizens. U.S. citizens are not required to carry proof of citizenship ever and they can't legally be arrested or detained for this. The most that legally ICE can do to a citizen is briefly stop them to ask questions. Anything beyond that is an illegal arrest, full stop. There is a lot of constitutional law here, not a lot of ambiguity. While mistakes happen, and ICE is clearly becoming more eager to violate the law (see TFA), that doesn't mean we should be unclear about what the law says. In particular, prioritizing the (incorrect) results from an app over any sort of claim or presentation of proof is illegal.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  The issue is fake documents. People in the country illegally have already shown a willingness to break the law and the typical consequence for presenting fake documents is nonexistent - it's deportation, exactly as if they didn't even bother trying. So we've created a scenario where fake documents are widespread, especially in areas with high numbers of illegal immigrants where they are readily available. So how do you discourage this? We could start prosecuting and imprisoning people with fake documents, but that would send our already absurd prison population through the roof and cost immense amounts of money. An alternative way is exactly what this article is about.
  - matthewdgreen 1y ago
    Fake documents are a problem for immigration enforcement officials. They are a problem that makes immigration enforcement harder, and requires officials to be more creative. They are not a problem for me, a legitimate US citizen, such that they require my rights or freedom to be curtailed in any way. And let’s be clear: that’s precisely what TFA is talking about: an unreliable, unauthenticated database that officials will believe over my legitimate and truthful statements of citizenship, and over my legitimate and truthful presentation of US citizenship evidence. As I said in a different comment, we US folks have decided as a society that we don’t want to have mandatory difficult-to-forge national ID. When asked this question democratically, US voters and their representatives have repeatedly* turned down this option and explicitly banned the Federal government from issuing Federal ID cards outside of optional passports for international travel. We made this decision precisely because we distrust the sort of Federal government that would require us to carry that sort of document. There is nothing accidental about this, and you can find explicit statements of this bipartisan consensus all over real Federal legislation; there’s really no possibility that we did this by accident or without due consideration of the tradeoffs. You’re correct that this lack of standardized documentation makes the immigration enforcer’s job harder, since they can’t just force people to produce proof-of-citizenship on demand and they can’t detain US citizens, and they can’t necessarily trust every paper document they’re given. I’m sympathetic! But that’s the tradeoff we’ve made as a society. The answer is not “throw out the rule book and risk depriving citizens of their rights because our job is hard.” The answer is: respect the rules you were given and due the best job you can without depriving US citizens of their rights. And PS this situation is hardly unique: we also make ordinary cops’ jobs harder by requiring them to respect suspects’ civil rights and demanding probable cause to make an arrest. It’s tough! The result there is that cops have to work harder and be smarter; they don’t just get to detain anyone they want just because they might vaguely hypothetically be a criminal.

convolvatron 1y ago

the Supreme Court has recently determined, in Noem v. Perdomo, that racial profiling by ICE is indeed completely .. acceptable? idk what the right word for 'legal but not legal' is.

Izkata 1y ago
That ruling wasn't based on race, it was based on a whole bunch of factors (including: high amount of illegal immigrants in the area in question, jobs and locations that attract illegal immigrants due to not needing paperwork, etc). It was also not final, it was temporary pending another appeal.
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  The ruling was just ”let’s play for time, this is looking fun and interesting. Keep it up team!”

matthewdgreen 1y ago

You are describing rules that pertain to non-citizens. U.S. citizens are not required to carry proof of citizenship ever and they can't legally be arrested or detained for this. The most that legally ICE can do to a citizen is briefly stop them to ask questions. Anything beyond that is an illegal arrest, full stop. There is a lot of constitutional law here, not a lot of ambiguity. While mistakes happen, and ICE is clearly becoming more eager to violate the law (see TFA), that doesn't mean we should be unclear about what the law says. In particular, prioritizing the (incorrect) results from an app over any sort of claim or presentation of proof is illegal.

somenameforme 1y ago
The issue is fake documents. People in the country illegally have already shown a willingness to break the law and the typical consequence for presenting fake documents is nonexistent - it's deportation, exactly as if they didn't even bother trying. So we've created a scenario where fake documents are widespread, especially in areas with high numbers of illegal immigrants where they are readily available. So how do you discourage this? We could start prosecuting and imprisoning people with fake documents, but that would send our already absurd prison population through the roof and cost immense amounts of money. An alternative way is exactly what this article is about.
- matthewdgreen 1y ago
  Fake documents are a problem for immigration enforcement officials. They are a problem that makes immigration enforcement harder, and requires officials to be more creative. They are not a problem for me, a legitimate US citizen, such that they require my rights or freedom to be curtailed in any way. And let’s be clear: that’s precisely what TFA is talking about: an unreliable, unauthenticated database that officials will believe over my legitimate and truthful statements of citizenship, and over my legitimate and truthful presentation of US citizenship evidence. As I said in a different comment, we US folks have decided as a society that we don’t want to have mandatory difficult-to-forge national ID. When asked this question democratically, US voters and their representatives have repeatedly* turned down this option and explicitly banned the Federal government from issuing Federal ID cards outside of optional passports for international travel. We made this decision precisely because we distrust the sort of Federal government that would require us to carry that sort of document. There is nothing accidental about this, and you can find explicit statements of this bipartisan consensus all over real Federal legislation; there’s really no possibility that we did this by accident or without due consideration of the tradeoffs. You’re correct that this lack of standardized documentation makes the immigration enforcer’s job harder, since they can’t just force people to produce proof-of-citizenship on demand and they can’t detain US citizens, and they can’t necessarily trust every paper document they’re given. I’m sympathetic! But that’s the tradeoff we’ve made as a society. The answer is not “throw out the rule book and risk depriving citizens of their rights because our job is hard.” The answer is: respect the rules you were given and due the best job you can without depriving US citizens of their rights. And PS this situation is hardly unique: we also make ordinary cops’ jobs harder by requiring them to respect suspects’ civil rights and demanding probable cause to make an arrest. It’s tough! The result there is that cops have to work harder and be smarter; they don’t just get to detain anyone they want just because they might vaguely hypothetically be a criminal.