[alex43578]

Surprise, you’re already tracked in a dozen harmless ways that enable modern life: drivers license, Social Security number, birth certificate, etc; even before you get into quasi-public records like credit reporting, bank accounts, and insurance.

Acting like showing ID to an immigration official is some unprecedented intrusion is absurd. Fly domestically, shop at Costco, or buy a 6 pack of beer and you’ll end up showing more “papers” than a typical interaction with Customs/ICE, assuming you’re not illegal.

[ceejayoz]

I can not shop at Costco, not buy beer, and not fly.

I can't not interact with law enforcement, which is why we have things like the Fourth Amendment to protect us in those non-consensual scenarios.

[alex43578]

And you are protected. These are not unreasonable searches.

[ceejayoz]

I am not obligated to carry papers as a citizen.

If I answer "yep, I'm a citizen", and ICE says at one of the internal checkpoints "well we don't believe you, prove it", what now?

[alex43578]

If ICE has probable cause to believe you are an alien and don’t have the necessary documents, you could be detained or arrested.

If ICE doesn’t have probable cause to believe you’re an alien, you’re free to go.

Things could be different based on state-level stop and identify statutes when interacting with state LEO.

[ceejayoz]

> If ICE doesn’t have probable cause to believe you’re an alien, you’re free to go.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-ice-detained-c...

"In 2017, Stevens began studying cases like Watson’s, combing through court records for instances of ICE detainees being released after the government acknowledged they were citizens. She connected with dozens, including many who had been deported before the government could correct its error, and who got in touch with her from other countries. 'This is happening all the time,' she says. In her study, she found that, on average, U.S. citizens detained by ICE spent 180 days behind bars. Deportation is always a real possibility. At a mass removal hearing she attended, Stevens remembers the judge declaring that all 50 defendants would be deported; as the bailiff cleared the room, a man stood up and shouted, 'I thought I’d have a chance to speak to a judge!'"

"It took years, but eventually the BIA, even with the naturalization papers in front of them, denied his request for a stay, concluding the government could deport him. The court’s argument was arcane: It maintained that Watson couldn’t prove his father had custody of him when he was naturalized."

"A court would eventually rule that Watson had been wrongfully imprisoned. But the statute of limitations to sue the government began the day he got locked in ICE detention; it had passed by the time he was released."

[sethammons]

innocent til proven guilty. This is a core tenant. To not believe such is firmly unamerican.

[alex43578]

It is a core tenant for criminal trials, not the civil proceedings of immigration. Instead, lower standards, including probable cause for detainment, or a "preponderance of the evidence" standard for the immigration proceedings is sufficient. That is and has been the American standard.

Legal immigrants to America for over a century accepted and complied with these legal processes, many of which were even more burdensome or discriminatory (quotas, Chinese Exclusion Act, Immigration Act of 1924, etc).

It's unamerican to undermine a core tenant of the US's national sovereignty: the "sovereign right of States to determine their national migration policy", by arguing that unregulated, irregular migration is the norm and that any action to enforce immigration law is unthinkable.

[komali2]

Genuine question: Are you a communist, or perhaps a member of a former communist state? What you're discussing is how Americans perceive the Soviets or the Maoists, it doesn't really align with American values as I grew up understanding them.

"Show me your papers" is not something I think most Americans think is acceptable to be asked of them.

[alex43578]

Excepting “sovereign citizens”, most Americans comply when asked to show ID on a traffic stop, their passport at customs, a drivers license when renting a car, or even ID when swiping a credit card at Walmart.

Do you think all Americans are just running around bartering for corn with bullets? Showing ID when engaging in modern society has become common - except when voting, of course, oddly enough :P

[komali2]

> most Americans comply when asked to show ID on a traffic stop

It's not just sovereign citizens asserting their rights to not identify themselves out of turn to a cop. You're right that cops in America are becoming increasingly authoritarian and trying to intimidate people into giving up their rights, but check out any youtube channel that's essentially just a reuploader for full cop chest cam videos, and almost every encounter with a cop has people pushing back on unlawful search and seizure.

Anyway, your examples are all not exactly good faith, since we were discussing random "show me your papers" stops, which is what ICE has started doing. Needing to prove you have a legal right to drive is relatively uncontroversial. As for showing your passport at a random DHS stop, I've refused every time (over 20 times, I'm a Texan), and everyone I know does as well, and we're certainly not sovereign citizens. "I'm an American citizen, thank you." On my way. They're completely used to it so I know we aren't outliers.

> even ID when swiping a credit card at Walmart.

I've never had to do this lol, not sure what this is about, but again irrelevant when discussing government overreach.

> Do you think all Americans are just running around bartering for corn with bullets?

Ok, this might be a rural American thing, but, yes, many people are basically doing this. Maybe this is just a Texan thing but there's whole ass grey market economies around this.

IDK man maybe we just roll in different circles, maybe it's a redneck thing, but my perception of American values is hot rodding cars so as to escape the cops, not welcoming federal agents into your city to deport your neighbor that watches your kid when you gotta run to the post office real quick, just cause of some frivolous bullshit paperwork.

[sQL_inject]

We're being downvoted but no one has offered answers to my question.

In an advanced society where citizens are tracked, and receive the benefits of that tracking, why is it somehow okay for others to not be yet to reap the benefits? Why should others immigrate the 'proper way' if one can simply walk across? I can wait until anyone here who defends the lawlessness of the past ways answers.