Even REAL ID Can’t Save You From Being Arrested As An Illegal Immigrant

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.