Watson says that, looking back, he’s not confident that the damage long-term imprisonment did to his mind and body was worth it to remain in the country. “As lovely as America sounds, it’s not everything. It’s okay to start back over and live your life, because sometimes you’re gonna sit there for a long time if you’re fighting,” he says. His advice to other citizens in ICE detention is to remain open to giving up, if deportation means getting out of jail
Only do that if you know you’ll actually be deported - rather than imprisoned offshore.
I fully agree with the comments criticizing the ICE and proof of citizenship. The shitty part, the judicial branch is not arresting nor penalizing the business owners hiring illegal labor and a lot of those fuckers voted for this shit.
Yeah, that’s the problem isn’t it? I have to assume that if there was nowhere to work, there’d be less folks coming here illegally. It’s just known you can come, work your ass off, get paid pretty well in cash, and send that shit home on a weekly basis. And there’s rules about what can get sent home and there are ways folks skirt that all the time. It’s a whole economy. And nothing is done about the people facilitating it. It’s arresting the drug user, but leaving the dealers in place.
Only people acting in good-faith care about your “proof”
Not if the people examining my documents are morons, no.
I have a birth certificate, I have a passport and a passport card. None of that is a defense against “It’s fake”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/24/us-citizen-detained-ice-real-id
So ICE considers my government issued IDs are ‘fake’…
Then we counter with saying that ICEs badges are fake and start shooting them in the fucking face if they ever try to take my wife away.
Alternately, ICE agents aren’t trained/are too dumb to identify fake IDs…
Time to get a global entry card as well.
Another thing to consider is the recording of a ICE kidnapping where the person said they were a natural born citizen, when asked for proof they didn’t have their birth certificate on them… While in the car… driving to work.
The white paper birth certificate… That in my case is over 50 years old, and embossed with a stamp the clerks office likely got at the local trophy shop. That’s it.
Drivers license including the Real ID ones don’t count it seems.
So, yes. It’s being used to indiscriminately arrest who they want like the Stasi fucks they are.
Let’s see the citizenship proof of every ICE agent.
Insane that the Real ID ones won’t count when you need a brith certificate to get one.
Do you not need a birth certificate to get a drivers license in the US?
Usually you need multiple forms of identification, and the birth certificate could count as one, but isn’t required because non-citizens can get a driver’s license if they are here long enough. Someone spending the decade or so going through the slow ass process to get their citizenship needs a driver’s license during that decade.
Nor do you in most countries. Generally, a passport is the most authoritative form of identification.
Right but you need a birth certificate to get a US passport dont you?
Yes, because a passport is based on citizenship.
Not op, but most countries provide an ID that is not a passport. It needs a birth certificate. In my country that ID is far more authoritative than a passport and it even allows ingress to the country in case the passport is lost.
This ID issue is a very US thing. Most governments keep a tight registry of citizens and wouldn’t have any doubt about who is and isn’t a citizen.
I’d hope Ingress would be allowed in if their birth certificate said they were born there!
Do you travel abroad with your birth certificate on you?
You can use a birth certificate but it’s not required, there’s other methods to prove your identity.
That’s no longer true. That’s what the RealID is about.
While there is an option to have a driver’s license as a Real ID, not all driver’s licenses are Real IDs. Not sure the majority are tbh.
Pretty much. The fact is that ICE does stuff like beat up and arrest a state-level union president because they don’t like the color of his skin.
Don’t call it an arrest.
It’s detainment. Kidnapping even. But an arrest has certain procedures and requirements that are not being followed by ICE.
So does detainment. The fact that they are not following the procedures and requirements makes it an unlawful arrest or, as you correctly pointed out, kidnapping.
I’ve been thinking about getting a passport card just to have a proof of citizenship in my wallet at all times.
They picked up at least once citizen who had his passport card on him and put him in detention anyway, saying the card was fake. Which is why due process for everyone is important, because otherwise you’d never get the opportunity to prove you’re really a citizen.
Passport cards should be trivially easy for government officials to validate, if they care to. Border agents can, after all. Simply confiscating them and saying “they’re fake” shows they don’t care whether it is fake or not.
If you have any melanin at all, you should carry your passport card with you at all times, but also keep your full passport at home, in a location that your family and/or trusted friends know about, so they can produce it when ICE comes for you and confiscates your passport card.
if they care to
ICE doesn’t care if your skin is too dark, or your name sounds vaguely Arabic or Spanish.
Or if you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially when they need to make a quota.
It’s a good idea, I like that I can use it to go to Canada and Mexico without rolling out the real deal passport, but it also passes the Real ID test for domestic flights.
Its your word and evidence against the word and ignorance and willingness to kick you out of a racist asshole.
Literally all you really need, fundamentally, is to have memorized your SSN. Your SSN’s validity cant be faked. It proves you are who you say you are at the drop of a hat. If its valid enough for a bank to loan you money through a phone, just because you know your name and your SSN and those match, then it should be good enough for ICE. Its good enough for normal law enforcement already.
And yes, many undocumented people have fake SSNs, but they are not real numbers that tie properly to persons name. They wouldnt pass an EVerify system
then it should be good enough for ICE
How embarrassing for you that you still think they give a fuck about what would be proof or not lol
SSN is not proof of identity.
Is a social security card a form of ID?
No, a Social Security card is not a form of ID. It only verifies the connection between a name and a Social Security Number.
As it does not have a photograph or other features needed to confirm identity, it cannot be used to confirm someone’s identity.
My birth certificate doesnt have a photo of me on it either.
DLs and other photo documentation are easily faked in comparison to a SSN.
My comment was meant in the assumption that you have a normal form of ID as well. While your ID could easily be faked to show your picture, only you should know your social security number. Thereby identifying the validity of your photo ID.
Regardless, many government databases should have your photo ID from drivers licenses, passports, etc, tied to your social
I have literally used only my SSN to prove my identity to a game warden before. I didnt have my ID because I was out fishing in a boat. We got checked for licenses. I gave him my social and all was good. ICE should be no different than that
Most kids don’t have the set of photos you describe in government databases.
Are children the target audience of the article?
Are children likely to be detained independently of a guardian?
yes? literally separating families has been the hallmark of this and the last Trump administration. Famously.
ICE has been raiding elementary schools in the past few days.
I dont expect 2nd graders to read the article.
It’s like proving to a Nazi, you don’t have Jewish ancestry in 1938.
not if someone expects me to produce documents randomly on the sidewalk.
Without due process they can just take your documents and poof! What documents?
This is pretty much it. When folks are disapearin and theyre response is they are bad and now its to late oh well. No one is safe. Its literally the secret police.
Good luck once locked up without the right to an attorney
It’s getting to the point very soon that the only way you stop this, is armed community resistance.
No warrant, no entry. The only way you stop the abuse of power, is by confronting it with more power.
They are bullies, they are not brave.
No, that’s now. Look at what happened yesterday in L.A., for instance.
What happened?
So many things wrong with this headline.
- It is ‘nearly impossible to escape’ FOR ANYONE, not just US citizens. By design.
- You can be in the US legitimately without being a citizen.
- ANY AND EVERY detainment by ICE is wrongful.
- You are not legally required to provide ID to authorities. In some states you can be compelled to provide your full name and possibly your address, ONLY if there is reasonable suspicion against you.
There is an important and subtle distinction to be made here. A lot of noise is made calling people who are here without authorization “illegals”, but that’s not always true. Being present in the country without authorization is not automatically a criminal matter. It is true that many of the avenues for being here without authorization (crossing illegally, overstaying a visa) also violate the law, but that is handled as a separate matter.
Since immigration status is mostly a civil matter, ot a criminal one, these immigration courts are not under the Judicial Branch, like criminal courts are. They are actually “administrative courts” which are part of the Department of Justice, under the President, just like ICE is.
So while the courts occasionally provide a check on this Predident’s power, the immigration courts never will. They ultimately report to the President through the DoJ, and the President has much more direct influence over it. So it doesn’t surprise me that these people are stuck in a Kafkaesque hell, where ICE ignore their pleas that they are citizens and says “tell it to the judge”, and when they finally get to the judge they get ignored.
Is it any wonder that Trump was so dead set against the immigration bill last year? He needed the process to stay chaotic, in order to have a better chance of winning.
Republican leadership has been calling non-citizens here legally under temporary protected status illegals as well. Same holds true for other asylum seekers that followed the legal process. Facts and laws that stand in opposition to their goals are ignored by the republicans in charge and their supporters.
This does beg the question in my mind: If a person is wrongfully determined to be an illegal immigrant despite only having US citizenship, and is actually deported to some country ICE convinces themselves that person is from rather than “deporting” them to some prison in an unrelated country like El Salvador, they would presumably be in that other country illegally at that point. Would they be liable to be deported back to the US in such a case, by the government of that country?
The other country has to be willing to receive them. In this case, the US would probably not.
But countries like El Salvador are being paid by the US to take these people, so they don’t really care about the facts, they just want the money.
In that case, do countries usually just take other countries at their word that anyone accused of being an illegal immigrant from that place is actually from where theyre accused of being from, or does the US have to, if it is trying to deport someone somewhere with a reasonably functional government, give that country some kind of evidence that theyre sending them one of their citizens before they agree to take them? For that matter, what happens if a country just stuffs someone on a plane going to another country without the consent of the country in question?
Each country sets their own laws, so it’s ultimately up to the destination country. When an ordinary citizen visits another country, they have to meet requirements for entry, but countries can negotiate any terms their government allows them to. So as long as the US government works out terms with the other country in aadvance, they can send anyone.
The US government does have an advantage other countries lack: we have military bases all over the world, including a lot of “shithole countries”. There are separate agreements negotiated over the use of that land, but I bet that the US can send whoever they want there without declaring to fhe local authorities who they are. Then the US can “conveniently” lose track of them and… poof! No more undesirables…
Probably be stuck in customs for life.
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The number of blithely staunch fascists in that article’s comment section is nauseating.
Welcome to America
Man, I can’t wait for them to try to grab someone with concealed carry.
police arrest armed people all the time. or they shoot them.
even having two naked guys with guns vs one body armored guy with a gun puts the odds in the naked guys’ favor.
They’re wearing body armor. Dude with a concealed gun likely ends up dead, and ICE gets no charges because they were afraid.
I don’t see any Kevlar on their faces.
Odds of shooting somebody in face when you are ambushed by a larger group of armed men are low.
Kevlar isn’t magic. For a pistol round, it might absorb a bunch of the energy, but it’s still like getting kicked in the chest by a horse. And that’s only for one. Or, if they’re ceramic plates, they become much less effective after the first impact.
And that’s for a pistol. Consider if they come to the wrong house and the person at the door has a shotgun.
The problem is that you’re probably not lying in wait with a mythical concealed-carry shotgun. Realistic sequences that have happened in the recent past:
- A couple guys wearing utility company uniforms ask to step inside to diagnose a problem. They then jump you and arrest you.
- Your camera system stops working due to jamming. Then 15 armed men break through your door and surprise you while you’re asleep in bed.
- Several people in the crowd at your kid’s graduation ceremony suddenly surround you and zip-tie your wrists before you realize what’s going on.
You’re going to be dealing with a situation where you don’t see in advance what’s happening, and where you’re confronted with a whole batch of people who are heavily armed and wearing body armor. That’s a situation where one individual acting alone is very unlikely to succeed in killing an assailant with a gun.
Proving you’re a citizen or not is irrelevant since ICE are not enforcing immigration law they’re conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign.
Well, for me personally, all they would need to do is run my finger prints as my prints have been in the system since I was in highschool for employment background checks.
However, that would assume that the thugs were competent and acting in good faith, which they are not.
if only they had some sort of id card they kept on their person at all times… The government would know who they are. They are explicitly against this. So, “leopards ate my face”
They call your ID fake…
The government doesn’t care. They won’t look at any proof even if you could provide it.
Due process is how you prove who you are. They’re not doing any due process.
Or they’ll just call your ID a fake. It’s racism through and through.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/24/us-citizen-detained-ice-real-id
