For fellow Americans living in cities where ICE is active, many people, especially those of Hispanic descent, are already carrying around passports on their persons at all times because they’re rightfully afraid of being forcibly disappeared or deported to some random South American country.
A passport card can be obtained for $30 from the Department of State. It is considered exactly equivalent to a passport within the US, but it’s the size of a credit card. It is a valid travel document for land and sea travel within North America and the Caribbean. It also counts as a Real ID. The card is good for ten years.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/need-passport/card.html
Do not do this if you are transgender or have an X gender marker. They will cancel your passport and tell you to apply for a new one with your sex assigned at birth.
What should be is not the same as what is.
Don’t comply
This is a difficult thing to respond to. I (Asian, US citizen) have actually been stopped by ICE because I live in Portland, Oregon. I gave them my passport card and they said, “okay, you can go”. I then cussed them out, saying “You blind motherfuckers, you aren’t even good at being racist; do I look Mexican to you?”
They told me to fuck off. And I did, after giving them the middle finger and calling them “fucking Blackshirts”. But this interaction accomplished what I wanted it to: it (1) caused aggravation, (2) shows them that they aren’t welcome and (3) that their presence is not appreciated. In hindsight, I should have stayed and argued to waste their time.
If I had just refused to do anything the whole time, the most likely outcome was that I would have been taken to the ICE facility in downtown Portland and accosted for a few hours, accomplishing nothing.
Right… because it was only a problem because you’re Asian… the stop would have been fine if you were actually Mexican… gee thanks.
You must understand, that the goal of saying that was to cause aggravation. Had I been Mexican I would have chosen a different insult.
What IS is that they don’t care about little pieces of paper in your wallet.