If they passed a "Papers please." Law in your state, would your current ID show you are a US citizen?

I would be fucked. My state issued ID expired 10–19-2008. My passport is buried in a box and Obama’s birth certificate is easier to find than mine.

If your state complies with the Federal REAL ID Act of 2005 it is encoded in the ‘barcode’ on the back of the license or ID.

Mostly the new laws that some states have passed are aimed at non-whites, so it is something that non-whites may have to deal with fairly soon. Although it could expand to include whites as well, but it may take longer. I definitely think that this is the direction that the US is going & I think it is a serious mistake. America has always been a country peopled by immigrants, so unless you are Native-American, you & your family is descended from immigrants. I do not understand the extreme phobia that so many people have against immigrants (either legal or illegal). As for being able to show that we are citizens, I have no idea. We would either have to have a Passport or a copy of our birth certificate, I guess, unless some sort of bar-code was added to our DL.

Yeah. I am legal. Although if I am still in the city come time to renew I think I might not.

I carry my birth certificate in my billfold.

I keep my birth certificate in a safe place at home, because my wallet could more easily be ripped off. I already had one backpack stolen and had to go through and cancel all my credit cards, fight charges that the thieves put on them, etc. – I can’t imagine the trouble I’d go through if they got my birth certificate.

I’m not sure. My driver’s license only has my name, address, height & weight and hair color.

CA (I hope) would never pass such laws.

I usually have my passport with me when I travel, even domestically. If someone asked me this second I don’t think I have anything that proves I am citizen in my purse for instance, unless TN only allows people who are legal to get a Driver’s License? I don’t know what the law is on that here? If we had to carry proof I might get a passport card on top of my passport, I assume they are the size of a license? Funny, everyone I know who is a green card, always has their ID on them.

My husband was not born here so birth certificate would not help him. But, he has a passport.

@tinyfaery I think in CA a person can only get a Driver’s license if they are legal.

I would love to see a law that required proof of citizenship.

@YARNLADY Are you serious or sarcastic?

I wouldn’t have a problem.

If they go that route I really hope they allow enough time (36–60 months in my estimation with secured and better than projected funding) prior to consequence enforcement to clear the backlog of people getting square. The feds have no excuses, they’ve been through this kind of mess before, and know exactly what kind of disaster understaffing and underfunding makes out of it.

I think the fed must purposely ignore a lot of the illegal immigrants. They can easily find a lot of them if they wanted. It all has to be part of some system that big business and the government allows to happen.

This is so tiresome and ridiculous. There is absolutely no reason to have a border. People should flow in and out freely. This business of who is entitled to be here and who isn’t and who gets what benefits and who doesn’t is a bunch of horse-swoggle. This nation is and has always been far better off when hard-working immigrants are encouraged to come here, rather than when we take a short-sighted view of trying to keep others from playing because it’s our ball and not theirs.

If we don’t play, and play freely, we’re dead meat. The country that was once so full of piss and vinegar and grand ideas will be dead. The immigration issues just don’t deserve any attention at all. We have far better things to do with our time. Or we should!

@wundayatta Just curious, do you have any concern for communicable diseases like TB? Or, Hep A? Those diseases still occur in much higher rates south of the border.

I’m serious. I don’t like non-citizens receiving citizen benefits.

I don’t have a passport, and I certainly don’t carry around my birth certificate (@bkcunningham that’s pretty dangerous.) I don’t know if my drivers license would be enough or not.

Related: The new voting laws (or proposed laws) that require birth certificates to vote. Some people don’t even have birth certificates (born at home many years ago), but have been voting for years and years. They won’t be able to vote now.

Besides my birth certificate, they only thing I have is my passport. I use it enough so I know where it is. I have a driver’s license and a military ID, but you can get those without being a citizen.

@augustlan, I have a plastic card, about the size of a credit card that I’ve carried in my wallet for decades. It is a registry of live birth. Most governmental agencies don’t accept it as as a birth certificate anymore. They use to though. It was issued by the state where I was born and has a government seal. I have a paper birth certificate, with the raised seal, in a fireproof safe. I hadn’t thought about it even being in my wallet until this question. Maybe I should put it away in a safer place.

Just to bring this up again you don’t have to be a citizen to be legal in America. You only have to be a citizen to vote. There are many different legal statuses (sp?).

@augustlan I don’t know how I feel about requiring ID to vote. I can tell you where I vote they always check ID. I know it can discriminate against the poor, the old, and minorities, but I don’t like the idea of people who are not citizens voting under someone else’s name.

@JLeslie Is it a concern? Sure. But I’d rather have people accepting a free health exam and getting free treatment when they are here instead of sneaking in and staying sick because they are afraid to become visible to the health system.

I am not one bit worried about non-citizens receiving benefits. I know that over the long run, they, as a group, pay far more into the system then they will receive in benefits—unlike native-born Americans. That’s another advantage of having them come in—they subsidize us.

I would also point out that we don’t seem to have a problem helping people in this country who have never paid into the system—children who are orphans or very sick folks and the like. Using citizenship as some measure of deciding who is eligible and who isn’t is very unprincipled. I think it’s immoral, but that’s just me. It’s no different from determining who your liege lord is based on blood lines. Everyone knows how stupid inherited leadership is.

Deciding someone is a citizen or not based on where they happened to be born or who happened to be their parents is not only intellectually bankrupt, but it is morally unsupportable. Either we are citizens of the world, or we are flies scrabbling for our own little bit of shit.

@wundayatta I agree that if we give them legal entry we can evaluate their health for the biggest concerns (which is exactly what we do already for people. I can’t remember if my husband needed a medical exam for his student visa or greencard or citizenship or some or all of his status changes). You said said have the borders wide open, so I was not sure if that meant we are still tracking who is entering.

Some countries look at immigration more closely from a business aspect. Letting in talent they don’t have in specific industries or people with money. We do it somewhat in America, but not to the extent other countries do. Afterall we are supposed to take in tired, poor, and huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

My passport’s still current and well used. However, I would refuse to “show papers” because the police in places like Arizona have to know that this is still America, not Nazi Germany.

@Ron_C I disagree with that analogy. The Jews were German citizens, and the government is not killing an individual who is here illegally.

@JLeslie ” the government is not killing an individual who is here illegally.” not yet.

@Ron_C Ironically I wrote on this Q, just before I made my comment to you here about not agreeing with your analogy.

I wrote:

@Dutchess_III Because Germany was a civilized, democratic, country before they elected in that idiot Hitler and followed along with his crazy hatred. Jews were in all parts of society, and strongly identified with Germany. If it happened there, why not anywhere? It was not that long ago.

In America 9 black children just 50 years ago were not allowed to enter schools in Little Rock (and other cities). The Governor of Arkansas reinforced it by sending in the Arkansas national guard to keep them out. The fed by order of the president had do go down and allow the children safe entry.

Well, in keeping with the racist nature of these laws, I’d be fine, as I could not possibly look more Caucasian.

As far as my paper trail, the only issue I have is my passport still has my maiden name, but I do keep a certified copy of my marriage license with it.

Just recently renewed my License and got my passport so I’m good to go.

However, being hispanic and the natural target for this kind of xenophoic legislation:
Fuck that idea, the fascists who suggest it, and the horses they rode in on!

@johnpowell I;m about like you. My state ID is still valid, but I don’t think it shows anything about my citizenship. I never provided proof of citizenship to get it.

@WestRiverrat I do have a barcode on the back of my license. Do the beat cops carry scanners that can read it? Also, since I never proved citizenship when getting my driver’s license years ago, how could the barcode prove citizenship? Maybe my state just doesn’t comply.

@Linda_Owl You are quite right about racial profiling being behind this. In a comical aside, Mercedes Benz agonized about building an assembly plant in Alabama because they felt the Confederate flag in the state’s emblem was a holdover of racial bigotry, and the Germans have seen all too vividly where such hate leads. Alabama’s legislature actually changed their flag to get Mercedes to choose them as a location for US manufacturing. After Alabama’s Measure 56 passed, a State Trooper arrested a German citizen for failure to show proper papers. Turns out he was a major Executive of the Mercedes Benz plant in Alabama. With much egg on their faces, the state released him with apologies. The German firm is now reviewing their decision to locate in Alabama given the state’s anti White Southern American bigotry.

@judochop I hear you. When the paranoid schizophrenics take over government, massive passive resistance can go a long way to restoring sanity.

@bkcunningham I would agree with @augustlan. Be very cautions about carrying anything that even ties in to your birth certificate. If you loose it or are robbed, Identity thieves can have a field day with the information it provides, and it will take a long and annoying fight to restore sanity to your life.

@laureth Wise move. That’s the best strategy. We just need to get past this fascist movement of Papers Please.

@tinyfaery Unless we see a sea change in the political landscape, it’s a safe bet California won’t pass such an insane law. We are seeing a sea change right now, but the tide is flowing swiftly in the opposite direction.

@JLeslie My last stint of international travel was in 1987. I still have that passport, but it’s buried down in tons of ancient papers. I was in California at that time, and I never had to show proof of citizenship to get my California Driver’s License. If I had stayed in Santa Barbara and kept just renewing that license, I could be from Krypton and my driver’s licencee would show no clue of my extraterrestrial origin.

@YARNLADY As a Conservative (as in wants all the governmental you can get for free) would you ne willing to pay what it costs to apprehend, try and deport 11 million people? I honestly doubt it.

@wonderingwhy The feds have no excuse, hey? They know how much it costs and how much staff it takes. Has it ever occurred to you that the very people demonizing this issue are the same ones that constantly under-fund the effort and ensure that there os not sufficient staff to do it? That accomplished two vital goals for the Con Men. They get more fodder for their claim that government can’t do anything and should be basically abolished, with the resulting tax savings flowing to the billionaires that fund them; and they keep a constant supply of sub-minimum-wage labor here for their corporate sponsors. Workers with no rights, no hope to organize, and no ability to ask for expensive workplace safety.

@JLeslie Bingo. See mu answer to @wonderingwhy above. Whenever both parties rail against some “problem” but noneffective do nothing about it for decades on end, you can bet some corporate lobbyist are paying for the status quo.

@wundayatta You nailed it. It’s a political demagoguery issue, not an existential threat to the USA. Immigration built the USA, and mostly at a time when it was unrestricted.

@rts486 Same here, except that it’s been so long since I used my passport that I’d have to dig through all our old papers archives to even find it.

@JLeslie That’s one of the more comical points. My wife came here from Thailand on a student visa. When she married me, she got a green card that shows she is a legal resident alien. She carries that with her. So she could show papers that I would have to take weeks to find.

@wundayatta Ditto. Trying to keep epedimics confined to artificial human-imposed borders has an abysmal success rate.

@Ron_C Very telling answer. Thanks.

@JLeslie It most definitely can happen here. And BTW, Hitler never won an election. He simply grabbed power through shrewd political maneuvering.

@Seek_Kolinahr I’m WASPy looking too. But should the fascist forces take over in America, lord help me if they look into my politics.

@sinscriven I would feel the same way.

@ETpro Any immigrant who has a license from ‘87 in my opinion should be legal unless they are criminals (and I am not including illegal immigration as a criminal act in this case). They live here, they are not going back.

On one hand I don’t understand how people can not have a passport. But then, I also understand we have a big country, a lot of people never leave it for any reason. Even vacation, there is so much to do and see in America. I always think, what if a fabulous opportunity came up and I missed it because I did not have a passport. It’s so much easier to just keep it current, just once every 10 years.

My history is horrible. He lost the election, but had received a third of the vote? Eventually Hitler was appointed Chancelor? And, then later congress, or whatever the legisative branch is called in Germany, voted him in for some reason right? Still ⅓ vote. What I don’t know is if he was talking kill all the Jews when running in the election, I doubt it. I assume he was just about strategy regarding Europe and the safety and economy of Germany. Like I said my history is bad.

@ETpro wants all the governmental you can get for free I have always been outspoken in favor of paying taxes, and I believe everyone should pay their fair share. I do not believe non-citizens should be given all the same privileges as citizens.

@YARNLADY Do you mean citizens only, or anyone who is legal to work here? I’m sorry to be so picky, but for instance my FIL can get social security and medicare as an example, he has a green card. His wife, she has green card status also, but can only get one part of medicare, the one for doctor visits, because she never worked, I think the wife of a citizen can get A,B,&D if I am not mistaken. I can’t understand why being a citizen should matter there. He just started getting social security, because he just competed the 40 quarter requirement.

@JLeslie I believe citizenship should be a requirement to receive benefits.

@YARNLADY Even if they pay into the system like everyone else? Interesting. Would you exempt non citizens from paying into social Security?

@JLeslie Yes, a person who is not a citizen should have a non-social security card which would exempt them from SS. However, they should still pay income tax and sales tax.

@YARNLADY Makes sense. Thanks, I’ll think about that some more.

@JLeslie Hitler was never elected, but he was enormously popular for a time. His corporatism did get the horrendous German Economy back to work through massive Government deficit spending. He constantly made Jews the scapegoats for all that was wrong with Germany, but he did not reveal his “Final Solution” till he had firm dictatorial control.

@YARNLADY <y comment about wanting safe roads, and ports, and protection from crime and terrorism, and wanting it all for free wasn’t directed at you, but at the legion of right wingers who rail against taxes. The Tea Party motto is Taxed Enough Already even though taxes today are lower than they have been in the past 80 years. I agree that illegal aliens who have never contributed to the system shouldn’t draw from it except in life-or-death situations. I would not stand by and watch somebody die simply because they hadn’t given me enough money to intervene and save their lives. But most illegals who do work here pay taxes. I think they should be able to benefit from what they have paid in just as the rest of us should.

My wife is a resident alien here on a green card. She’s been here for 45 years. She’s worked and paid taxes and Social Security withholding. I am baffled by your logic that she shouldn’t be able to get back what she paid in. She’s here legally. She met all the requirements. Is it just that she isn’t a natural born American? Why should she be denied Social Security and Medicare benefits? She paid here share for them, and played by all the rules required to collect them.

@ETpro I don’t understand why a person would not want to become a citizen of the country they have chosen to live in – and giving benefits to non-citizens encourages that. As you can see above, I don’t believe they should pay into the SS and Medicare system, nor should they receive benefits.

@YARNLADY So, I have been thinking about your suggestion. I think one thing that might be unfair about your idea is people have usually 1 or 2 different legal statuses before they become citizens. My husband was first here on a student visa, he could not work with thay status. Then he had a legal status which was attached to his work basically; that was for about 2.5 years. Then his status switched to being attached to me when we got married. Then several years later he became a citizen. So, with your plan, his first years of working here would not count towards social security, even if he always had the desire and intention to become a citizen. That wasn’t the case. That actually was not the case at first, deciding to become a citizen was a process for him, I think for many people it is.

@ETpro Why hasn’t your wife become a citizen after all this time? One reason my husband wanted to do it was because he did not want to risk changes in law that might affect him if he was not a full citizen. With time it became more about truly wanting to be an American. He is one of those people who feels strongly America gave him opportunities he probably never would have had in his country.

I have a Canadian friend who has been here for 30 years who never became an American. She says she doesn’t want to study for the test. LOL. I told her how easy the “test” is. She’s nuts.

I think legal aliens working in the US should have SSI deducted from their checks.
While they live in the US they would be covered by the normal SSI rules.
If they choose to return to their nation of origin, the SSI money deducted from their pay should be refunded to them, the extra money the employer paid in would remain in the trust. If they change their status to permanent residency or become citizens, they should be covered under normal SSI rules.

Not everyone that comes here to work wants to stay here forever. I think it would be beneficial to the US to restructure the work visa system to make it easier to work here and maintain your foreign citizenship.

@YARNLADY & @JLeslie That is not for you to understand. She is from Thailand, and she loves her nome country. She’s never wanted to loose her Thai citizenship. To my thinking, thats for her to decide.

@WestRiverrat Thank you. That’s exactly the point. My wife paid into the SSI system for her entire work career. Why should she be denied benefits simply because she still feel a fidelity to her hoimeland?

@ETpro I am not judging her. If I went to live in another country, it would be very hard for me to come to a point where I would want to identify as a citizen of that country I think; I feel so strongly about being American. Like I said, for my husband it was a process. He is still Mexican. No matter what he will always be Mexican. I am not talking about being a Mexican citizen (although I think he can be a dual citizen, he has never pursued maintaining his passport there, I don’t know the rules that govern dual citizenship with Mexico) I am talking about it is where he was born and raised, part of who he is. I am not trying to convince you she should become an American, I have no idea if Thailand allows dual citizenship, I am just giving a little of my perspective on it.

@WestRiverrat I like that plan, although it would actually result in less money in the SS pot than we have now, because we don’t refund the money now.

It’s a plan that does not understand how the SSI system works. The money we pay in does not go into an account for ourselves. It goes to pay for current retirees. Think of it as a tax, not an investment. When we pay the SSI tax, there is nothing there for us, at least, not specificially. They do, sometimes, collect more than they spend, and they should be investing that. Instead, it is used for other government expenditures.

But what we pay now has nothing to do with what we get later. What we get later has to do with what is being paid into the system by current workers at the time we retire. If there are a lot more retirees per worker when we retire than there are now, we won’t get nearly as good benefits as current retirees get.

Anyway, everyone who works, no matter what their citizenship status, pays in. Whether they ever get any retirement benefits has to do with their eligibility status when they retire, not how much or little they paid in before hand. The amount of benefits has something to do with what they paid in, but that relationship is not as direct as one might hope.

@wundayatta I understand that young people are paying for retirees, but I would hop at least some of it is being kittied in some way. Relying on our younger people solely seems like it is a taking a little too much risk. It require the new births to at least be keeping up with what is needed to support an aging population that is living many years after retirement.

I would hope some money was being saved, too, but it seems that it isn’t. When there’s money sitting around, our politicians can’t resist doing something with it. Like the payroll tax cut, which eats up most or all of the “kitty.” SSI isn’t in the red, so all is good. Never mind that the policy will make it very difficult to keep benefits at the level we are used to now that baby boomers are retiring.

@wundayatta Thank you for that perspective. It makes a lot of sense.

@wundayatta – re “They do, sometimes, collect more than they spend, and they should be investing that. Instead, it is used for other government expenditures.”

By law, it’s invested in Treasury bonds. Just like the money we deposit in the bank, it doesn’t just sit in a vault, it’s invested. So in a way, it is “used for other government expenditures,” but at least they drop a little IOU in the vault.

Now, we can debate all day about whether or not we’ll pay off that Treasury bond at a later date. I hear some folks claim that we should just cross off all that debt and say “screw you” to future old farts (like me) who have paid into the system all our lives. But if that happens, it will be like when the obstructionist GOP almost pushed us into defaulting on the national debt, except there won’t be any “almost” about it. This would be a Bad Thing. But discussing it further is beyond the scope of this question.

@JLeslie The thing is, if she decides to become a US Citizen, she must give up her Thai citizenship. She does not want to do that. I believe I would if I were in her situation, but like I say, that’s entirely her decision to make.

@ETpro I see. I can understand. I feel about it as you do, it is completely up to her, and I can understand why the decision is difficult.

I have close friends who are Italian-Venezuelan. The mom, who is now in her 70’s, oncetold me the story of going to apply for her paperwork in Venezuela when she emigrated there, she was in her 20’s. They asked for her passport, and she handed it to them, and then they kept it! She was so upset. She didn’t know they would do that. I mean, she tells the story over 40 years later still with emotion. She lives in the states now. If you ask her where she is from, she might answer Venezuela, it is a complicated question when you have emigrated twice, but then if you say to her, “you’re Venezuelan,” She would say, “no, I’m Italian.” and have a little bit of a tone, like you idiot, but in a humorous way.

@JLeslie That pretty well captures it. Our native land means a lot to us, even if we felt we had good reason to leave it. I would despise living in Virginia under Governeo Bob MacDonald and the house of clowns the Republicans have turned the state’s legislature into. Their first legislative act after winning control of all three branches was to change the addoption laws so that agencies can legally discriminate now on the following list of issues:
1—Sexual Orientation
2—Race
3—Religion
4—Being a single parent
5—Being handicapped
6—Age
7—Political beliefs

But I am still a Virginian at heart, and I weep for the uglibness RepugniCons have brought to my home state.

@ETpro Hahaha. I find your disgust entertaining.

Virginia is for Lovers. The slogan does not really imply strong, logical, government. Maybe VA is the Italy of the US? LOL. Just kidding. Virginia is a great state, beautiful, varied terrain, many people from many places, strong educational system in many parts of the state at all levels. Not a bad state to identify with. Are you from Northern VA?

@JLeslie Virginia is the home of many of the most influential of our Founfing Fathers. It’s turn toward authoritarianism is dismaying. Laugh as you wish. It may be a movie coming soon to yo. If RepugniCons have their way, it will.

@ETpro Oh, I take it seriously like you, just how you stated it cracked me up. So much of VA is the “south” and the south has become more and more extreme in their repulican, right wingedness. States that are so different from one part to the other are very interesting. It’s one reason I hate the electoral vote going to all one candidate in a state.

@JLeslie I;ve stopped even calling it right-wing. It’ s wrong-wing. There is nothing right about what they are doing. I’m not saying that because I think we should hand everything over to the Democrats. They are marginally better right now, but give them ruling party status and they would soon be as authoritarian as the wrong-wing and as sold out to the billionaire oligarchs that now own the GOP. The enemy is authoritarianism, and it makes no difference whether the absolute authority is extreme right like Hitler and his fascism, or extreme left like Stalin. Hitler and Stalin were mortal enemies that operated in exactly the same way. And the current GOP is swinging ever closer to authoritarian fascism.

@ETpro I lived in Southern Va. for about 14 years. I was suprised at how intrusive the laws were after I became a civilian. They sent a personal Property tax form that wanted to know the size of my refridgerator and wether my television was color or black and white. I sent it back telling them to “mind your own business” and never got another letter.

I am not surprised that they fell victim to their fashist instincts.

@Ron_C Born and raised in Southern Virginia. How well I know. It’s all about shrinking government till it is small enough to do nothing for you, but control every move you make and every thought in your head.

” It’s all about shrinking government till it is small enough to do nothing for you, but control every move you make and every thought in your head.” How would that work exactly?

I find it deeply disturbing that the same people that want to shrink and destroy government want to go to war on a speculation, control what happens in your bedroom, and limit your free speach and right to vote. That hasn’t happened since WW2 in Germany.

@Ron_C It obviously won’t work. Since it is a logical contradiction, it is obviously just anouther Big Lie that those wanting a more authoritarian government use to try to sell their agenda.

@ETpro “it obviously won’t work.” I wouldn’t bet on that. Americans are incredibly stupid and uninformed. The vast majority doesn’t understand why the “Occupy” movement exists and almost half think Romney is a good alternative to Obama. Couple that with the right ring control of voting restriction and practical control of the voting machines, I don’t see a scenario where the ultra-right can loose. I think if they actually want to win the next election they will buy pulling the strings already in place. Of course they probably want to loose. That way they can cause as much mayhem as desired and have the left take the blame.

In four more years they’ll be able to walk in and take complete control of the country with the full consent of the electorate.

@Ron_C Oh, I didn’t mean the Big Lie couldn’t work, I mean the logic would not work. You cannot be in favor of ever smaller government and also in favor of government that polices every bedroom, womb, penis, polling place and prayer in the nation.