That’s assuming someone in a “detention facility” will even be able to contact anyone outside of it.
Thanks for the reminder - while I do have my birth certificate it’s a piece of paper over 60 years old now and literally falling apart. Also, when I’ve been updating ID’s these past few years I’ve gotten pushback from my original documents not being “modern format” or whatever excuse is being used so I’m ordering some new, updated, official copies for going forward. Because this “show me your papers” thing is only going to get worse.
I had a similar conversation with my mother * and I kind of stumped her when I said " When they arrest you in Walmart for being an illegal alien, what are you going to do. " Of course she said “Prove I’m a citizen”. When I asked " How will you do that?" , she had no answer.
* I mostly had this conversation because my family is very welcoming to immigrants - at a large family event, there might be seven or eight languages spoken. Which means that a number of people have accents and/or might speak another language in public which IMHO means there’s a greater chance of them having problems - and if my mother’s with them, so will she.
And if they say “show my birth certificate”, remind them of Trump’s executive order that denies citizenship based only on place of birth. Besides your birth certificate, you also need to prove one of your parents was in the country legally.
The Real ID part was unrelated to the immigration part. I was using it as an example to show how long it took a regular person to come up with the necessary documents to prove citizenship.
My point was even if you had proof: Real ID, passport, birth certificate, &c. who says that ICE won’t ignore it and throw you in custody anyways. They have immunity so no repercussions.
Right, it’s pretty easy to take your papers and “lose them” or realize there’s dot missing over an ‘i’ so it’s suspicious and needs to get verified, which could take months to years…
Not even that. Given qualified immunity and the state of The State and complete lack of respect judges have for civil rights, what is to stop this interaction:
“Here is my Real ID. I also have my passport with me along with my birth certificate.”
“Turn around. Hands behind your back.”
Which amusingly , is not so much true in this case. My mother is of Sicilian ancestry and is darker than a lot of brown people. Which is why she’ll be in trouble if she’s at Walmart with most of her grandchildren’s spouses/partners - she might look white if she’s with me or my very light skinned nephew but not if she’s with that nephew’s Salvadorean wife.
There’s also a whole heap of people who’s passport and driver’s license names don’t match up with their birth certificates. And it’s not just those trans people…
“What did I do wrong?”
“You’re too well-prepared. No Real American™ would just walk around like that, ready to prove their citizenship and everything.”
The chairman of the NY State Young Republicans says that New York has nothing to do with immigrants, and even if it did, today’s immigrants don’t have the right “values”. In an interview on All Things Considered from 2/15/25:
Four years ago at our high school graduation the valedictorian was a girl whose mother was born in Korea and adopted by an Irish American family as an infant (in the 1960s). Her father is Irish American. For all intents and purposes neither of her parents nor any of her extended family have EVER lived outside the United States or even outside New England.
The class president was a boy from Russia who came to the US in his sophomore year.
Guess whose accent the local uneducated folks claimed they couldn’t understand. And who are these “people coming here and changing the character of our town”
I’ve seen instructions for how people should deal with ICE agents which say that they have no right to enter your home without a valid warrant, and that you should refuse to even open your door to them. My first thought on seeing this was, “Yeah, and after they break down your door and drag you out for refusing to cooperate what do you do?”
I’m one of them. So I guess I’ll also need to carry around a copy of the court order for my name change.
