I appreciate the suggestion, wj, but let's not overlook the larger point. It's not myself I worry about. The circumstances in which I, an aging white guy with no discernible foreignness about me, might need to prove my citizenship to an ICE "agent" on the street are circumstances in which you or anybody else could find themselves.
--TP
2025-10-01 22:07:19
I am a US citizen. I passed a test, swore an oath, and have a certificate to prove it. The certificate is too precious to carry around like a driver's license. And it features a warning in red caps: "IT IS PUNISHABLE BY US LAW TO COPY, PRINT, OR PHOTOGRAPH THIS CERTIFICATE WITHOUT LAWFUL AUTHORITY", which sounds like carrying a photocopy around is verboten. That leaves me in the same position as everybody who entered the US via the maternity ward: unable to tell somebody with "ICE" stenciled on his jacket to fuck off. Imagine not being allowed to show your driver's license to a cop who pulls you over on suspicion of not having a driver's license. Real Murkins lack that much imagination, of course, and since most of them don't speak Spanish anyway ...
--TP
I appreciate the suggestion, wj, but let's not overlook the larger point. It's not myself I worry about. The circumstances in which I, an aging white guy with no discernible foreignness about me, might need to prove my citizenship to an ICE "agent" on the street are circumstances in which you or anybody else could find themselves.
--TP
I am a US citizen. I passed a test, swore an oath, and have a certificate to prove it. The certificate is too precious to carry around like a driver's license. And it features a warning in red caps: "IT IS PUNISHABLE BY US LAW TO COPY, PRINT, OR PHOTOGRAPH THIS CERTIFICATE WITHOUT LAWFUL AUTHORITY", which sounds like carrying a photocopy around is verboten. That leaves me in the same position as everybody who entered the US via the maternity ward: unable to tell somebody with "ICE" stenciled on his jacket to fuck off. Imagine not being allowed to show your driver's license to a cop who pulls you over on suspicion of not having a driver's license. Real Murkins lack that much imagination, of course, and since most of them don't speak Spanish anyway ...
--TP