There has been a lot of discussion lately on whether, as a US citizen, you should carry a passport (or passport card) everywhere in order to be able to prove you are a citizen if stopped by ICE or someone. I’ve had a few online conversations as well, and so I thought I should probably get my thoughts out in something longer than a post on mastodon or bluesky.

My current thoughts are that I’ll going to carry a passport card in some high risk situations, but I will not carry any proof of citizenship most of the time.

If you’re reading this, you probably know that until recently I was living in the US as a non-citizen (I’ve written more about this here). In the last 6 months or so, I’ve come to realize that we don’t always understand the significance of seemingly small rights until we lose them. Nor do we realize the psychological cost of having to give them up - the sense of powerlessness and despair as they slowly get eroded away. But also, I’m going to be realistic. There is always a tradeoff you are making when you assert a right someone wants to take away, and being in denial of that fact isn’t helpful. When making this decision, you have to understand, as accurately as possible, what you are risking, and decide if you’re willing to take that risk.

The risk also differs a lot by circumstance. Right now, walking around San Francisco, there is basically no chance someone stops me and demands to see my citizenship papers. If I found myself for some reason needing to go into the government building that also has the immigration court, where ICE lurks waiting to kidnap people, I would definitely bring my passport card. If the National Guard comes in, and they start setting up checkpoints and people start getting randomly stopped, that’s when it might make sense to make a stand, but I would probably pick the time at which I decide to assert my rights. The most likely outcome would probalby be that they get mad at me and delay me a bit. There would be a small risk of being detained, but I’m in a position I can probably afford to take that risk, and I think it would be worth it.

Everyone has different circumstances, but I think it’s important, if possible, to find some kind of circumstance you would be willing to stand up for your rights. Not just as an obligation to society, but to yourself. Despair is not just the notion that bad things are inevitable but also that you are powerless to even endure them. I’m not naturally inclined to bravery, but I’ve found it’s a skill that can be learned.

Unfortunately, a lot of what we hear on the subject is driven by uncontrolled panic. People refuse to learn the exact specifics of what is happening or understand the exact risks, and sometimes get angry when anyhone tries to talk about it. There seems to be a pervasive belief that speculation and exaggeration is necessary to motivate change, to scare the complacent or in denial. But often it instead makes people more afraid to act than they need to be. Exaggeration also minimizes or erases the actual experiences of victims of these policies, implicitly saying their suffering is not enough to matter. And while this anxiety can make you more empathetic, it can also you make you more self-centered. By overestimating the risk to yourself personally, you can forget to think about how others are much more affected. And to some degree, spreading alarming rumours is a luxury of those who are an audience to all of this, who don’t need to worry about the actual details and find ways to exist in the spaces between the policies as they actually exist.

It’s also good to be realistic about risk factors. The people at highest risk are people who speak Spanish, work in certain industries, and are perceived as not white, and your risk decreases as you get farther from this particular situation. The court rulings are pretty explicit about who they are profiling. If you are highly politically active and are noticeably not born in the US, that may also be a risk factor, especially around Gaza or other subjects where the current administration wants to restrict speech. But if you are, for instance, an unambiguously white, monolingual software engineer born in the US who is not politically active, you probably don’t have anything to worry about. Even as an ambiguously ethnic person with an equally ambiguous accent, I think my personal risk is pretty low.

Thoughts on if you are not a citizen

Ok, so I cannot emphasize more how much I am not a lawyer.

Legally, you have to carry your immigration paperwork everywhere, in the US. It’s a misdemeanour not to, you can go to jail for it, in theory. I have heard that this has never actually happened, though it is possible you could be the first, especially in these times. I don’t think it’s one of the misdemeanours that can make you ineligible for citizenship, so getting caught without them may not have life-changing consequences, but again, not a lawyer.

When I first crossed the border with a non-tourist immigration status, the immigration officer next to me was telling another guy that it is legally mandatory to carry these papers at all times. The one I was talking to looked over, and then turned to me and said, don’t do that, that law is really stupid, leave them at home so they don’t get lost or damaged, nobody ever randomly stops you and asks you for your papers. Of course, that was before even Trump 1.

If you have decided to not carry your documents with you, I can’t tell you if that’s a good decision or a bad decision, but I can say that I have never been asked for my papers except at a border crossing or when starting a job, in the almost 15 years I was here. What I can say is that some people online are like “why do people not just lie about being citizens if citizens don’t have to carry ID” and I will say DO NOT DO THIS. You will get in more trouble doing this than anything (not a lawyer), it apparently prevents you from ever getting US citizenship and this is one thing that there’s no way to fix (not a lawyer).

If you have never been in this situation, you might wonder why this is a question people ask themselves. It’s because sometimes immigration papers come in a format that is very prone to damage or to being lost. There was a point as a student where I realized that the only record of my lawful presence that appeared to exist at all was an ever growing stack of random printed out pieces of paper with assorted signatures on them that I had been given. It’s better once you have a more permanent situation, but as far as I can tell, DHS is really bad at record keeping and you are personally responsible for being able to prove every detail that you would expect is in some database somewhere. So, losing or damaging your paperwork can be more worrying than being caught without them, especially since in the past in the latter situation you might just get a stern talking to at the worst.