Rueben Antonio Cruz was sitting with a friend in Rogers Park when ICE agents pulled up onto the street.
The immigration officers stopped their truck and went straight after them on Oct. 9, Cruz told the Tribune.
“They asked us if we have papers. I said I do but I don’t have them on me,” Cruz, a 60-year old man with heart problems originally from El Salvador, recalled in Spanish.
The agents stood Cruz up, put him in their truck, drove around in circles, and asked questions, he said.
Papers please lol
So, if you’re a legal immigrant and get “randomly” asked for your paperwork, you have to produce it on the spot or face a fine?
What if you’re a legal immigrant and just say you were born here? No native born citizen carries around their passport
Or can they also fine native born white Americans for their birth certificate and fine them if they don’t have it? But we just don’t hear about it because they don’t bother “randomly” checking white people?
Since when is failing to carry a passport a civil offense… What law covers this?
Seems like ICE is starting to make up laws now to justify their BS with more BS
That will be a fun law suit
Now that’s since 1939 Gestapo crap if I’ve ever seen it.
I mean, sad as it is, fines are an improvement over just straight kidnapping people regardless of citizenship.
The bar is in hell.
I mean they kidnapped him too when they stood him up and put him in a car for a drive around the block
this is litterally that one scene from the phineas and ferb movie (the 1st one) where this robot asks for papers or else death
Ahh I see we are officially transitioning into the “papers, please” stage of fascism already. Buckle up folks, the road only gets rougher from here on out. The witch hunts don’t stop here.
Papers please American DLC when?
I think the IRL version just dropped
Region locked on the US (for now :/)
Don’t some European countries have mandatory ID laws?
Yeah, we had them forever.
For me, the only practical consequence has been that when I forgot my driving licence at home, I could show my ID and the cop at the traffic stop could check my licence status.
Having mandatory ID isn’t not the same as having to carry them everywhere and surrender it to a random masked guy.
No, it just allows you to be easily identified by the masked people when they start asking! The slippery slope of handing your liberties away. Look at the pride you have in your own. It always starts somewhere but it ends the same. The people fighting for power right now are not interested in regional control
As opposed to being disappeared without identification just based on your skin colour.
i see you’re not black, a minority, or visibly poor….
i’ve been fighting “papers please” for a while….
it’s definitely much worse now thoughI certainly might not be those things, or I might not be American either. Hard to say for sure, it’s fun to speculate though isn’t it?
well if you think papers please just started, you’re probably white
Are you a lizard?
No wait, don’t answer that. How many questions do I get first?
Three
What is your name?
What is your quest?
What is your favorite color?My name is holytimes
My quest is to find a really neat cup
My favorite color is green, no wait purple?
Gets yeeted
To be fair I believe it is a legal requirement for non citizens to carry their papers on them. https://international.northeastern.edu/ogs/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/DRAFTv5-FAQStatusDocs-3.24.25.pdf
This is not condoning the behavior of any of this b.s. that has been going on. But just trying to share information.
Greencard Perm Resident here who read all their paperwork very carefully thrice so I didn’t have to hire a lawyer, can confirm am always supposed to carry it.
No kidding. TIL. That’s still pretty lame though.
Heh. Yes. Tbf, it was always a requirement.
And if he had his papers, they would have said they were fake, confiscated them, and hassled him anyway:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/24/us-citizen-detained-ice-real-id
Under federal law, registered foreign nationals must carry proof of registration with them at all times. But prior to a second Trump administration, it was rarely enforced.
Apparently green-card holders have to carry their green cards around all the time. This law was so rarely enforced that I never knew about it despite having been a green-card holder myself.
The thing is, US Citzens don’t have to carry papers with them, so there is no way to enforce it without stomping all over the rights of citizens. We should all be outraged over the expectation of producing papers.
Its true that there’s no way to enforce a law like that directly, and I don’t think that I agree with the requirement to carry documents at all times, same as you.
There is some use for laws that are not directly enforceable, though, just not in this case. For example, a government may reasonably want to limit citizens’ ability to operate a vehicle carrying a hazardous chemical. They may not be able to justly stop him and check for things with no reason, but if that is discovered because he got in a wreck, they can then punish the illegal transport crime.
I know its often repressive or at least unhelpful to make laws that aren’t directly enforceable, but there is some room for them. It is important to disallow legal overreach of law enforcement trampling civil liberties trying to enforce those laws like you pointed out, though. That’s something that my country (USA) unfortunately has a checkered history with, as have a lot of others.
ETA: To be clear, making it illegal for a person to not physically have something at all times seems patently absurd, regardless of how loosely enforced. All of the reasonable requirements of being a legal resident are met by simply being registered with the government of the country you are visiting.
Right, it should be perfectly fine to answer “Papiere bitte” with “fuck off”. Until they know you’re someone who is required to carry their paperwork, they shouldn’t be able to require it
This is what it’s really all about; everybody has rights, or no one does. There is no in between.
Former green card holder here: I read all the paperwork I got and I always carried my green card on me cos I was aware of the requirement. Am a bit paranoid about paperwork.
My friend got her green card about 20 years ago, and she said they made it very clear she needed to carry it at all times.
Because no one forgets, ever. And even if they don’t, what prevents a bad actor from stealing it?
All my youth, it was stressed to always carry my ID and social security card. Them it was “in two separate places,” and then, “leave ss card home.”
I didn’t say anything about the enforcement of the rule or how dumb it was. I was only pointing out that it should not be a surprise to any green card holder that they need to be carrying it.
I guess similar to jaywalking. Very few people ever get fined/charged with it even though it being a crime in most states in the US.
My wife used to be a green card holder it was made clear to her when she got it that she needed to always carry it. Not defending the gestapo’s actions, but the dude should not have left the card at home.
I gotta point out that in Canada at least, unless you’re driving you don’t need to carry any ID. You could be a freshly landed immigrant and you don’t really need to carry anything. Unless you’re driving, buying alcohol / weed or need to register for something. Its wild to me that “not having your papers” while just going about your day in the world is not resulting in major protests. Just wild.
I was still a kid (under 18) when I had a green card so maybe I didn’t get the official lecture for that reason, and then my parents didn’t think it was important enough to tell me.
I saw that. Why hasn’t that been changed under any administration? Is it something we need to address?
I think that having unenforced laws is in general a bad thing because then the government can use selective enforcement as a tool of oppression, so you won’t find me objecting to a repeal. Maybe it’ll happen if there’s ever a major backlash against Trump’s immigration policies.
I would like for it to be addressed, regardless of the administration.
I hope you and yours stay safe and healthy in every way, friend.
Doesnt that mean they can arrest everyone at the beach for nothing other than them not having their paperwork in the water with them. Throw them in the back of a truck and then if they so happened to be a green card fine them.
The whole thing seems sketchy.
“Why are you arresting/ticketing me?” “Because there is no way you have papers in that Speedo”republicans don’t want to do it, and no one thought to include it as a rider on funding for israel, so democrats didn’t do it.
Glory to Arstotzka, I guess.
From the article:
“I feel sad because, even though we were born here, that doesn’t matter any more,” the cousin said. She added: “To have our skin color has, apparently, become a crime. And it has become a crime deserving of this type of treatment – as if we were real criminals.”
😶
Gee, why is no one going to the US?
I hope he gets rich from suing them.
It’s technically illegal to not carry your green card. But it’s also authoritarian as fuck to kidnap somebody because they didn’t have it on them.
And beeline to the poc.
I just wish it didn’t come from our taxes. Should come from their pay and/or benefits.
Should come from their pay and/or benefits.
I agree.
However, I’m more than happy to contribute my share of taxes to this man’s payout specifically because fuck ICE
That’s the most American rebuttal to this - too bad the Supreme Court is in Trump’s pocket.
He was technically required to have his papers on him and the Supreme Court made it legal to racially profile people… which is just sad but it does mean he has no recourse
Supreme Court: 6/3 not signed its legal to ICE to fine citizens if they look brown.
Unsigned orders from the emergency docket are not decisions.
They could have driven him to his house so he could retrieve those papers or have someone bring them out for him. Boom, crisis averted. It’s not hard to not be a time-wasting asshole, but they seem to excel at it.
Sure. But this is a heck of a lot better than beating him up, arresting and deporting. Keep the pressure on them.
Lets not set the precedent that you should ever get in a car of someone claiming to be an ICE agent.
