Even REAL ID Can’t Save You From Being Arrested As An Illegal Immigrant
from the it's-how-we-know-it's-really-you,-they-ignored dept
The critics are out there, saying things like “Techdirt is alarmist!” and “Trump stuff is normal!” and “Tim Cushing’s posts have too many typos!” Well, here’s some news for the haters: everything I said a month ago is actually true, except now it has the weight of the gold standard of identification dragging it down, down, down into the progressively deeper hellhole that is Trump’s second administration.
For years, the federal government has been threatening/warning that American citizens would no longer be free to move about the country unless they got a brand new ID card that carried the US government stamp of approval on it. State ID cards were simply no longer good enough, even though we were still a united set of states despite Texas’s constant promises to leave the rest of us alone.
Things have changed with Trump’s return to office. The long- and multiply-delayed “REAL ID” is now actually for real. And, even though the latest deadline for compliance has been extended yet again, officials are warning you’re not getting on that plane unless you carry the new, federally required piece of plastic.
And sure, pretty much everyone is still putting off the pain of acquiring the federally branded ID until the federal government actually makes it impossible to live life without one. But early adopters aren’t faring any better than those of us choosing the path of least resistance.
Remember what I said about Trump being just as willing to detain, deport, or jail US citizens? I wasn’t kidding. And it’s a conclusion anyone willing to think a half-second about the current mass deportation effort would have arrived at. What makes you a US citizen when you’re confronted by an ICE pack? Well, it’s certainly not the documents you carry. It’s whether or not ICE chooses to recognize those documents as proof of your citizenship.
Here’s how one US citizen was repaid for doing the government a solid by getting in on the REAL ID scam on the ground floor, as reported by Suzanne Gamboa for NBC News:
A U.S.-born citizen who was wrestled into the dirt, handcuffed and detained in a vehicle as part of an immigration raid had a REAL ID on him that was dismissed as fake, the man’s cousin said Friday.
Video of the arrest, aired by Noticias Telemundo, showed authorities grabbing Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, while at a job site in Foley, Alabama, on Wednesday and bending his arms behind him. Someone off-camera can be heard yelling, “He’s a citizen.”
Garcia told Noticias Telemundo that authorities took his ID from his wallet and told him it was fake before handcuffing him.
That’s it. That’s the whole game. Carry all the documents you want, but all it takes is federal agents claiming they don’t believe you to undercut the supposedly inherent power of the identification documents you carry. That’s the massive disconnect — one that also applies to regular law enforcement — between our assumptions of how law and order works, and how law enforcement officers actually work.
The good news is only “good” in comparison to the much worse news Trump’s deportation efforts are generating daily. Garcia was eventually released by immigration officers once he provided them with his Social Security number, but that was after he was assaulted, pinned to the ground, handcuffed, and placed in a law enforcement vehicle.
And, of course, the government is going to get away with this because it almost always has and the nation’s top court has insisted via precedential rulings it almost always will.
She said they have been trying to find a lawyer but local ones have told them that it is nearly impossible to sue a federal agent.
This is true. And while it’s tough to hear, at least these local lawyers didn’t make things worse by offering false hope or offering to take up a case they couldn’t possibly win.
Now that another US citizen has been arrested — however briefly — by federal agents who’ve been instructed to see red when they see brown, the DHS has stepped up to claim (without facts in evidence) that this arrest wasn’t about Garcia looking kinda foreign and everything to do with him reacting to being treated like an illegal immigrant even though he’s a full-blown REAL ID card-carrying US citizen:
“He physically got in between agents and the subject they were attempting to arrest and refused to comply with numerous verbal commands,” said Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary. “Anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties, including U.S. citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest.”
Pics or it didn’t happen. Just kidding. Federal officers are no longer wearing body cameras thanks to Trump and for damn sure they’re not even wearing agency identification, thanks to their desire to avoid any accountability whatsoever. This is all about race. It has nothing to do with hunting down violent criminals or repeat offenders and just grabbing anyone who doesn’t look white enough to “belong” in a nation run by a bunch of bigots.
Filed Under: dhs, donald trump, ice raid, immigration, mass deportation, real id
Comments on “Even REAL ID Can’t Save You From Being Arrested As An Illegal Immigrant”
Can we just deport everyone with a badge?
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Joke’s on you, they’re not carrying badges.
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Badges are woke now.
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They have them. Don’t need to carry.
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It was a construction site and law enforcement is a foundation of the country.
As Jean Luke said – Make it so.
I’m not saying this whole immigrant witchhunt isn’t BS, but I don’t understand the point of this article.
REAL ID at best indicates, at best, that someone was here as a lawful resident. It doesn’t (with a few exceptions) indicate citizenship.
And we’ve seen the administration is happy to decide that people who’ve done everything right are no longer welcome, so why would ICE care about a REAL ID?
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Whoosh.
The point you missed is that every single person could be beat, kidnapped, denied their rights or killed by the American gestapo.
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If a REAL ID means someone is in the country legally, as you acknowledge, then it means ICE shouldn’t arrest them.
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Hah. ICE has gone after people going to their citizenship interview.
Clearly it doesn’t matter if they were here legally months or years ago when they got the id.
(Again, I’m not disagreeing with the sentiment of the article, but the example it gives. ICE not accepting an ID that doesn’t indicate citizenship as proof of citizenship. And worse, if a reader doesn’t know better, they’ll leave the article thinking that the ID does prove citizenship.
I’m just disappointed in the writing being misleading. Things are bad enough. We don’t need to do that.)
Is it being suggested that a Real ID serves as proof of citizenship as Wikipedia seems to indicate non-citizens are also eligible for Real IDs?
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It doesn’t matter. They don’t care. They said it was fake – while certainly knowing it was not.
Documents may not
Lead dispensers might. Make “mistakes” costly. Every single time.
I carry my US Passport card with me...
I opted to get the US Passport Card as well as my full sized passport, and have been carrying it in my wallet since the first Trump administration. Not that it will matter if my skin is tanned too much for their liking.
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Your passport is fake, bro.
Just look at it, from ICE eyes, is your face white enough? No, so it’s fake ID.
I was under the impression that Basically all state drivers licenses are REAL ID. I know Texas has been for many years (my last replacement silently became one, regardless of my thoughts).
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No, you can still get state IDs/DLs that are not Real ID compliant, if for example you need to renew and don’t (a) pay extra and (b) provide the exact documents you need to get one. (even if those documents were presented when you originally got your license).
So for example, if you’ve ever changed your name (like when you got married) or if you don’t have a copy of your birth certificate and the replacement you ordered doesn’t come in time, or you don’t have mail with the exact same address on it from the allowed sources, it can be a challenge to produce those extra documents.
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No. Increasingly going that way, tho’.
'We ignore the supreme court, why would we care about some plastic?'
All the evidence in the world doesn’t matter if the ones arresting/assaulting you refuse to accept it or dismiss it as invalid/inadmissible should it be presented.
The goggles...they do nothing.
I am a non-citizen, and I have a Real-ID. The local Dept of motor vehicles was happy to accept my green card, along with some unopened “official-ish” mail to confirm my address, as enough proof of who I am in order to issue a Real-ID without much bother.
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So in order to get a REAL ID, you had to present your green card, which proves you are in the country legally, and therefore that ICE shouldn’t be arresting you.
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Right, the valid green card does prove that I am legally here, but it does not prove citizenship, the denial of which was the subject of the article.
Being a legal “permanent resident” is not the same as being a citizen, the two main differences being I can’t vote, and I can be deported if I have committed a crime. Typically, that would require a felonious conviction, not just saying stuff some guy didn’t like.
…and “Tim Cushing’s posts have too many typos!”
Are you Streisanding now Tim?
I didn’t think you had too many typos before but now I am looking more closely at all your articles for typos instead of content.
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Good job.
To the folks that still support this; fascism doesn’t stop with race. Being white won’t save you. If they think you’re a “communist,” queer, or otherwise subversive, they all more than happy to detain you too.
And if you think “well, I’m none of those things,” all it takes is someone dropping the allegation that you are to end up in their crosshairs. Likewise, “subversive” is a catch-all term for “anything the government doesn’t like” and that can and will change on a whim. Trump has already shown he’s willing to throw people close to him under the bus, do you think he cares about someone he doesn’t even know?
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The only good news in there is that the word “subversive” is too big for most of the idiots in the DHS to know.
Not that they don’t have plenty of alternatives.
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And history teaches us that when they run out of people that are easy to target they’ll turn on their own people who aren’t considered “pure” enough.
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I wonder if Rubio really thinks they won’t come for him, or if he just figures he’s moving himself down the list.
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“They won’t come after me, surely. I’m one of the good ones.”
Being a citizen is not going to save you from ICE
All the agents have to do is separate you from your ID and destroy it, and poof, you’re not a citizen as far as they’re concerned.
And if you aren’t allowed a phone call, there’s no way to access a replacement or any counter proof before they put you on a plane to South Sudan and deposit you there with no money, no ID, and no possessions.
I fear that the only thing that saved these two men is that there were witnesses to the arrest who could make phone calls on their behalf.
ICE took a page from the Flat Earth Playbook.
Declare any evidence contrary to your claim to be fake.
And if they prove otherwise, declare that proof fake as well..