A family in Maryland is trying to find a woman arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whose attorneys say is an American citizen but the government insists is Mexican.
Agents arrested Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, 22, on December 14 in Baltimore while she was heading home with her sister.
Despite her saying she was born in the U.S., she was held in ICE custody after failing to prove citizenship, the agency said. Attorneys rushed to get a court order keeping her in Maryland, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) moved her to Louisiana anyway.
Her family has now been told she has been deported, despite U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson ruling Thursday that she could not be deported pending a hearing. Perez and colleague Victoria Slatten said they had not been able to confirm Diaz Morales’ whereabouts.
My go-to question when people defend this shit is to ask them to prove to me they’re a citizen on the spot.
Not many people even have a passport, much less carry one at all times.
Pro Tip: for an extra $30, you can get a Passport Card in addition to your passport. It is only valid as a travel document for land and sea travel within North America, but has the same proof of citizenship as a passport book. Everyone who is in the wrong half of the “Peter Griffin in a Fez” scale should carry it on their person at all times.
Yes, the ICE agent will say it’s fake, and confiscate it, but at least you can keep your passport book in a safe place for your family to bring to the detention center to try and get you out.
Yeah - I used to carry one. I’m white as a ghost, but I used to drive to Mexico often enough it was worth not having to replace my passport book because it was getting stamped too often.
Do they stamp something to supplement the card? Is that not an option with the passport book?
That card doesn’t have to be stamped at all. But it only works on land and sea crossing within North America. So unless you’re on a cruise or driving to Mexico or Canada, you still need the book with the stamps.
Right, I understand the difference in which the book is required and the card is insufficient. I’m just confused on how the card saved your book. You said they were stamping the book when you made land crossings. Instead, to save your book, you brought the card, which they obviously couldn’t stamp. So what did they do instead? Issue no stamps at all? Stamp something else? Whatever they did instead, could that alternative not also be applied to the book? I’ve only ever used my book by plane, so I don’t know what the alternatives are
If you have the card there’s no stamping.
It just makes me wonder why they bother stamping the book then if they don’t stamp anything supplemental with the card.
Canada and Mexico share their data bases with us. I imagine the visa is provided electronically at PoE
Thanks for the info. I’m on the okay side, but my wife and kids are not. A redundancy of documentation is the way to go. I just hope it matters.
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Thanks, bud. Luckily citizenship isn’t the issue (sorry, I meant naturalization for others, not for us), but profiling is still a problem. My wife was adopted by naturalized citizens and I’m a US citizen born abroad. We should be okay under normal circumstances. I’m just worried about harassment by ICE and DHS.
Relevent: Korean Adoptees that got deported because their stupid adoptive parents didn’t file paperworks.
Off-topic - A passport card does not have signature. It cannot be used identification in some circumstances.
The place i work requires ID from most people coming in. A signature is required most of the time.
And even if they can, it doesn’t matter as there are reports of ICE agents simply claiming the documents are fake and taking them away anyway.
REAL ID requires proof of citizenship and therefore should be accepted as proof, but these ICE goons aren’t trained and/or don’t care to recognize ID. I have a passport and have it on my iPhone as Digital ID, and I guarantee no one at ICE is equipped with a reader or knows what it is. If I’m ever grabbed by ICE, I expect the only proof that will matter is my neutral American accent.