# Can Sovereign Citizens be deported or interned? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 20, 2017, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616 "2017-03-20T15:39:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/41 "2017-03-22T05:12:17Z")
Niven’s notion of “anarchy parks” might do the trick. Large walled compounds (ten or twenty sections) where the candidates can go in and try to survive without rules. It would almost certainly end up being more trouble than it is worth, but somebody would learn something. I am just not sure who. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/42 "2017-03-22T05:17:45Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Niven’s notion of “anarchy parks” might do the trick. Large walled compounds (ten or twenty sections) where the candidates can go in and try to survive without rules. It would almost certainly end up being more trouble than it is worth, but somebody would learn something. I am just not sure who. Niven’s parks all had robots that patrolled everywhere and stunned anyone into unconsciousness if they attempted any violence against another person. The plot of the story was somebody figured out a way to deactivate all the robots and the park became a true anarchy, which broke down into a dystopia in a matter of hours. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/43 "2017-03-22T14:32:53Z")
See [Larryniven dot net](http://larryniven.net/stories/cloak_of_anarchy.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/44 "2017-03-22T15:07:14Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I know. What’s your point? > > I gave it as an example of how someone could be exiled to international waters. It wouldn’t need to be on US ships. > > And I made it clear I was mostly jesting. Oh, I know you were jesting. That story is one of my favorites, mostly because of the detention being on a navy vessel and therefore being treated as US territory–At least in a lot of fiction I read. Funny thing is there was no need to put Nolan on a ship to accomplish the judge’s wish. Simply put him in a prison and give orders to the staff not to mention the United States to him. One would think it impossible to carry out the judge’s order on a naval vessel. The story is still a mighty good piece of writing. And, unlike the “sovereign citizens”’ nonsense, has a coherent internal logic. Hey, maybe those nutters can all be persuaded to relocate to the Principality of Sealand and take over from the current regime. There’s even precedence right in Sealand for it. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/45 "2017-03-22T15:39:36Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Oh, I know you were jesting. That story is one of my favorites, mostly because of the detention being on a navy vessel and therefore being treated as US territory–At least in a lot of fiction I read. Funny thing is there was no need to put Nolan on a ship to accomplish the judge’s wish. Simply put him in a prison and give orders to the staff not to mention the United States to him. One would think it impossible to carry out the judge’s order on a naval vessel. The story is still a mighty good piece of writing. And, unlike the “sovereign citizens”’ nonsense, has a coherent internal logic. Of course Hale’s intent was to highlight Nolan’s physical isolation from the United States, not just that he would never hear of it. As a practical matter, of course, this wouldn’t work for what the OP asks, since vessels in international waters are normally under the jurisdiction of whatever country they are registered in. You would need to put them on an unregistered vessel - perhaps pay Somali pirates to cruise around the Indian Ocean with them. 😉 Seems like more trouble than it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/46 "2017-03-23T07:24:05Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Of course Hale’s intent was to highlight Nolan’s physical isolation from the United States, not just that he would never hear of it. Yep. > [@](#): > > As a practical matter, of course, this wouldn’t work for what the OP asks, since vessels in international waters are normally under the jurisdiction of whatever country they are registered in. And in Hales’ story, the ships weren’t just civilian things; they were US Navy warships. > [@](#): > > You would need to put them on an unregistered vessel - perhaps pay Somali pirates to cruise around the Indian Ocean with them. 😉 Seems like more trouble than it’s worth. I don’t know. With these “sovcits”/“freedmen on the land”/and other assorted delusionals, I’m starting to think it might well be worth it! ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/47 "2017-03-28T19:15:09Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Desperation and cognitive dissonance aren’t insanity. Thinking you’re smarter than you really are and being an insufferable jackass about it isn’t insanity. Joining what amounts to a religious movement based around pseudo-history and pseudo-law isn’t insanity, either. I’m sure some of the SCs are legitimately insane, but you can explain their behavior even if they aren’t. > > Perhaps more cynically, we don’t need to diagnose them with “sluggishly-progressing schizophrenia” (a fake diagnosis the USSR gave to dissidents) to keep them locked up. They do that to themselves by acting on their beliefs. I see (from the outside) a large overlap between preppers, SCs, fundie evangelicals, and generally conspiracies/ secret knowledge believers that makes both themselves miserable and dangerous to Society: - they believe only a few Chosen News / Gurus, everybody else is sheeple, or part of the conspiracy. This makes them exploitable as army for the Gurus/ authoriatarian leaders; we see how much Money they pull in. - it makes them live not only in smugness at having secret knowledge, but also in fear that the govt. oppresses them / the apocaplyse Comes / whatever their leader is telling them. This misery plus fear makes them obey the leaders but is not good. So that’s why Society has an interest in keeping These People from becoming a danger; and Society has a humane interest in treating them to get rid of their misery and fear and just live normal lifes. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2017, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/48 "2017-03-30T22:58:18Z")
What about just remanding the SovCit to a mental health facility for evaluation? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2017, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/49 "2017-03-30T23:22:02Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > What about just remanding the SovCit to a mental health facility for evaluation? Most of the time, the facility would wonder why you were sending them a non-compilant asshole with no real complaint. (I mean, no medical complaint. They’d have plenty of complaints of the form “I DO NOT UNDERSTAND” and “I AM THE LIVING SOIL” and “YOUR LAMP HAS ADMIRALTY FRINGE” and “I AM GOOD AT INTERRUPTING” and so on.) However, as I said, being a loud asshole with the legal comprehension of a slightly damp sponge is not a medical problem and trying to medicalize it would do more harm than good. (I’m sure some SCs are mentally ill. That means they have a history of mental illness, something orthogonal to their SC beliefs.) The only way to handle them is to, one, develop very strict laws about dealing with paper terrorism (filing false liens as a method of harassment) and, two, enforce all laws and rules of process against them strictly to ensure they can’t abuse the system or even delay the legal processes against them. Even if they refuse to acknowledge civilization, civilization is still obliged to acknowledge them, so it should do so in the most expeditious way possible. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2017, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/50 "2017-03-31T01:16:47Z")
I say that we pay Chad (the country, not the douche) $1B per year and anyone claiming to be a SC (or variation such as FoTL, Article 4 traveller, etc.) in open court has hereby given up their US citizenship, becomes a Chadian citizen and is immediately deported. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2017, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/51 "2017-03-31T05:10:17Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I say that we pay Chad (the country, not the douche) $1B per year and anyone claiming to be a SC (or variation such as FoTL, Article 4 traveller, etc.) in open court has hereby given up their US citizenship, becomes a Chadian citizen and is immediately deported. It’d be interesting to see what happened if every country with a Sovereign Citizen movement basically said “Fine, you’re not a citizen of our country now. Get out.” Australia, for example, is well-known for throwing people who show up here without the correct paperwork into unpleasant tropical island [del]concentration camps[/del] detention centres for extended periods of time. It’d be very interesting to see what happened if one of these SovCit nutters pulled their shit and a High Court Judge said “OK then, you’re not an Australian citizen, which means you’re not legally allowed to be in our country since you hate it so much, so enjoy a horrible, unpleasant life in offshore detention.” Obviously the whole thing would get tied up in appeals and a lot of public argy- bargy for a very long time, but it might encourage a few of the “My name is not spelt in capital letters and that’s a legal fiction so your rules don’t apply to me, nyah” crowd to pull their heads in. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2017, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/52 "2017-03-31T06:39:32Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > It’d be interesting to see what happened if every country with a Sovereign Citizen movement basically said “Fine, you’re not a citizen of our country now. Get out.” The rich would immediately use it as a literal get-out-of-jail-free card, and land somewhere tropical where they can buy citizenship. The poor would end up stateless, and there are UN conventions limiting statelessness, because the world doesn’t need any more refugees. (The US is not a signatory to those conventions, however.) Of course, people usually become stateless because their home country is racially discriminatory against their race and refuses to grant citizenship to members of that race. The major problem with statelessness is precisely what makes it so appealing as a pseudo-solution to the problem of SCs: It limits access to the legal system. That’s great if the shitheel is going to use the legal system to shit on the checkerboard and parade around like they just won, but it’s a major invitation to destruction of their civil rights. The fact statelessness is usually coupled to racial discrimination makes the whole situation worse, but, even if the SCs largely aren’t going to be discriminated against in that fashion, they still might end up with legitimate complaints they’d be unable to address were they stateless. It’s the whole “outlaw” problem all over again. And, for all that, it doesn’t go far enough: Non-citizens still have to obey American law if they’re in America. Non-citizens still have to pay American tax if they work in America. Non-citizens still have to have some kind of driver’s permit that America recognizes to drive in America. They’re still going to have contact with the police and the courts, only now, that contact is going to be made more complicated by the fact they’re not American citizens. > [@](#): > > Australia, for example, is well-known for throwing people who show up here without the correct paperwork into unpleasant tropical island [del]concentration camps[/del] detention centres for extended periods of time. > > It’d be very interesting to see what happened if one of these SovCit nutters pulled their shit and a High Court Judge said “OK then, you’re not an Australian citizen, which means you’re not legally allowed to be in our country since you hate it so much, so enjoy a horrible, unpleasant life in offshore detention.” Offshore detention is a different matter, and a much more dangerous one, especially if it’s coupled to losing your citizenship. Because… where does it end? Is it a fixed sentence? If not, they’ve been condemned to Devil’s Island for life, because, unlike the Australian refugees, they don’t have anywhere they could even theoretically be shipped back to. If it’s a fixed term, you’ve either created a punishment unknown in the history of law (to my knowledge), temporary loss of citizenship, or you’ve permanently deprived someone of citizenship, temporarily interned them on an island, and then released those stateless people back into the country they used to be citizens of. > [@](#): > > Obviously the whole thing would get tied up in appeals and a lot of public argy- bargy for a very long time, but it might encourage a few of the “My name is not spelt in capital letters and that’s a legal fiction so your rules don’t apply to me, nyah” crowd to pull their heads in. I doubt it. The dupes, the ones who’ve bought in (in every sense), lack the sense to _not_ do it, and are precisely the kind of stupid arrogant jackass who won’t be able to imagine it happening to them. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2017, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616/53 "2017-03-31T07:04:54Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Offshore detention is a different matter, and a much more dangerous one, especially if it’s coupled to losing your citizenship. Because… where does it end? Is it a fixed sentence? If not, they’ve been condemned to Devil’s Island for life, because, unlike the Australian refugees, they don’t have anywhere they could even theoretically be shipped back to. If it’s a fixed term, you’ve either created a punishment unknown in the history of law (to my knowledge), temporary loss of citizenship, or you’ve permanently deprived someone of citizenship, temporarily interned them on an island, and then released those stateless people back into the country they used to be citizens of. No, it works like this: _You have hereby declared that you are not a citizen of this nation. We accept your declaration and have determined that you do not have a visa. Therefore, you are not legally entitled to remain in this country. If we are unable to ascertain your actual legal citizenship, you shall be transferred to a sanctuary island. There, you will be provided with the means to petition other nations for admittance and will be transported to such a nation as will accept you. Until that happens, you will remain on the sanctuary island._ I do not see any particular danger. If you do not refute your local citizenship, you will not end up on that island. And if you are able to overcome your SCDS (Sov Cit Dementia Syndrome), you might be able to draft a rational petition to reclaim your original citizenship. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-sovereign-citizens-be-deported-or-interned/782616.md?page=2)