I don’t think you’ve thought through the downside risk. A coworker - himself of my ethnicity - assumed I was foreign born, I’m not going to leave it to chance when the promised deportation dragnet starts up.
Your concern is reasonable, and I've thought about it myself. The Wikipedia article linked downthread by int_19h notes: "Up to one percent of all those detained in immigration detention centers are nationals of the United States according to research by Jacqueline Stevens, a professor of political science at Northwestern University." There are specific cases mentioned in the article, and the case of Mark Daniel Lyttle was pretty alarming. It was written up in: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/29/the-deportatio...
On the other hand, you can't be detained without probable cause, and race/ethnicity alone isn't enough. For instance, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Brignoni-Ponce (https://case.law/caselaw/?reporter=us&volume=422&case=0873-0...): "In this case the officers relied on a single factor to justify stopping respondent’s car: the apparent Mexican ancestry of the occupants. We cannot conclude that this furnished reasonable grounds to believe that the three occupants were aliens. At best the officers had only a fleeting glimpse of the persons in the moving car, illuminated by headlights. Even if they saw enough to think that the occupants were of Mexican descent, this factor alone would justify neither a reasonable belief that they were aliens, nor a reasonable belief that the car concealed other aliens who were illegally in the country. Large numbers of native-born and naturalized citizens have the physical characteristics identified with Mexican ancestry, and even in the border area a relatively small proportion of them are aliens. The likelihood that any given person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor, but standing alone it does not justify stopping all Mexican-Americans to ask if they are aliens."
I second the recommendation to get a RealID. You're going to need one eventually for domestic flights, among other things. When I got mine at the DMV renewing my driver's license, they asked for a birth certificate, social security card, driver's license, and proof of (local) residency (e.g. utility bill). So why not get one and carry that as additional proof?
If it's the same process as getting a passport in the first place, you have to give them the documentation proving that you're a citizen, and they sit in it for a while before eventually mailing it back to you.
I wasn't talking specifically about you... there are campaign promises "we are going to deport _____ people" that you should know by now are just shit politicians say so that they get the votes in South Dakota, Alabama and shithole places like that. We heard in 2016 "build the wall, repeal ACA, lock her up..." and whatever BS was spewing at that time. the only policy that you know for sure will be in place for the next 2 to 4 years will be there to make sure that richer get richer - hence my statement that we'll see more people become billionaires than people that we will actually deport :)
Do you know how insane that sounds in this context? I absolutely despise Trump, make no mistake; but if you think Trump is rounding up any of the 40+% of the USA's non-white citizens and deporting them, you have been deluded by widespread FUD.
The "deportation dragnet" might apply to illegals, sure. Will any meaningful amount of US citizens get scooped up in that, if any? Highly, highly unlikely. You're probably more likely to be murdered.
All evidence points to first week being dedicated to flashy arrests in blue states with Tom Homan previously bragging that they would deport both illegals and their citizen family members with no regard for the obvious illegality of the concept.
I think he poorly phrased deporting "anchor babies" by ending birthright citizenship. Since then, he's directly or indirectly claimed multiple times that he doesn't plan on deporting USCs. There's no telling whether he wants to deport USCs deep down in his heart, but he knows that's not going to happen.
This is a movement based on extreme hatred and dehumanization of anyone different from them, and most of the time such movements have taken control anywhere historically, it has resulted in mass murder/genocide. We underestimate what atrocities they are capable of at our own peril. I am hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
I feel like I - and a lot of people I know - have been in denial of what is happening for a while. It is terrifying, and I don't want it to be true, but it is undeniable. I don't want to be one of those people that says "Davon haben wir nichts gewusst" - "We knew nothing about that."
