All of these stories are, to borrow a phrase from Stevie Nicks, hauntingly familiar. This is largely because politicians lie and people are stupid. But there is something more than a little insidious about the media’s fascination with these tired variations on a banal theme: real stories, ones that actually tell us something about the direction we’re heading as a nation, are buried below the proverbial fold… at best. One the the most significant of these is a recent article from the Washington Post’s Kevin Sieff. Here’s the key paragraph:
In some cases, passport applicants with official U.S. birth certificates are being jailed in immigration detention centers and entered into deportation proceedings. In others, they are stuck in Mexico, their passports suddenly revoked when they tried to reenter the United States. As the Trump administration attempts to reduce both legal and illegal immigration, the government’s treatment of passport applicants in South Texas shows how U.S. citizens are increasingly being swept up by immigration enforcement agencies.
This is outrageous. We can start with the State Department’s assertion that it “has not changed policy or practice regarding the adjudication of passport applications.” Does anyone else notice the peculiar odor of bovine feces wafting from this statement, or is it just Curmie? Of course the process has changed since the xenophobic Trump administration came to power. To say otherwise would be laughable were it not for the serious repercussions at stake here.
Yes, it is almost certainly true that “the U.S.-Mexico border region happens to be an area of the country where there has been a significant incidence of citizenship fraud.” But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t tens of thousands of bona fide Latinx American citizens born and raised near—but north of—the US/Mexico border. When we add in the fact that some of the victims are military veterans or even active military and border patrol agents (!) the issue moves from problematic to scandalous. If we’re talking about men a couple of years older than Curmie, the US government not only allowed these folks to serve in the military, they insisted on it in the 1960s and early ‘70s.
It is important that we exercise a little discretion here. Not everyone with a US passport was born on this side of the border. There are, in effect, three groups of affected people: those who are intentionally and fraudulently claiming American citizenship, those who honestly believe themselves to be US citizens when the true facts of their birth suggest otherwise, and legitimate US citizens who got caught up in the wash. We can reasonably assume that the first group exists—people named Hernandez or Garcia are not more likely to lie to the government than those named Smith or Wu or Benedetti or Kleinschmidt, but they’re not significantly less likely to do so, either. As long as it’s “better” to be a US citizen than a Mexican, someone will be trying to scam the system.
But the second and third groups exist, as well. Ask Curmie when and where he was born, and he can answer… but really, it’s only hearsay. I was there, but it’s not like I remember the details. My parents told me I was born in such-and-such a hospital at such-and-such a time on such-and-such a day. There’s a birth certificate that seems to confirm what I was told. But I have literally nothing these people don’t have… except an Anglo surname. Oh, and by the way, by law, a passport is prima facie evidence of citizenship.
Many years ago, the town my father lived in decided that they could lay claim to a right of way through his property. There was a town hall meeting, and the town officials came up with some document from the 19th century that sort of suggested without actually saying that in certain circumstances the town could indeed lay claim to property in that way… a sort of eminent domain with literally no remuneration for landowners. Naturally the acquisitive assholes whose property wasn’t affected were in righteous dudgeon about how these greedy people could possibly want to restrict access to their private property. Dad pointed out that he (and his father before him) had been paying tax on the entire property listed on the deed, which had no amendments, since 1918 (this all happened in the 1980s). In other words, there wasn’t a single person at the town hall who had any better documentation than he did. (The town supervisors won the town hall vote, but backed off in the face of a hefty lawsuit.)
The same phenomenon is at work here. There is not a single one of us who has more documentation than those being detained. Note that the previous sentence is expressed in quantitative rather than qualitative terms: it may well be that we have better documentation, even if no more of it. But even if that is the case, the time to question the legitimacy of a passport applicant’s credentials would be at the time of first application: not a renewal, and certainly not during the duration of a passport’s currency. To make such a decision requires substantive evidence—not just suspicion, evidence of fraud. Yet some passports issued this year are already being revoked. That the State Department is inept is not news, but they do keep coming up with new ways of demonstrating their incompetence: after all, either that initial issuance by Trump’s State Department was insufficiently vetted, or the current crackdown is a fishing expedition at best.
To me, the central issue is the presumption of the status quo. That is, someone who doesn’t already have a passport can reasonably be expected to prove that s/he deserves one. Once that document has been issued, however, that person’s citizenship has already received the imprimatur of the federal government. There’s nothing wrong with questioning the authenticity of a birth certificate, but once it’s been deemed legitimate, the burden of proof shifts. A passport-holder should never be expected to prove citizenship: the passport is proof. To overturn the government’s own ruling, it should be necessary to prove the holder is not a citizen. “But that’s hard,” say you. “Precisely,” say I.
But not only is the burden of proof misplaced, the evidence required to prove citizenship is ridiculous. Could you, Gentle Reader, provide “evidence of [your] mother’s prenatal care, [your] baptismal certificate, rental agreements from when [you were] a baby”? Curmie couldn’t. Ah, but Curmie’s parents (or their insurance) could afford a hospital instead of a midwife, and he’s white. This would appear to make all the difference. (Note: Muslim citizens are similarly being denaturalized: imagine Curmie’s surprise.)
Finally, let’s dispense with the notion that it’s business as usual. The State Department’s claims that domestic passport denials are at the lowest rate in six years for midwife cases. It may even be that this statement is literally true (and a statement from Mike Pompeo’s State Department has roughly the credibility of that Nigerian prince who writes to Curmie from time to time), but we should point out two things. First, this statistic, even if true, does not address the more sinister practice of rescinding passports already issued.
Secondly, and at least as importantly, the percentage of per se denials doesn’t really tell us much, as it appears that many applications simply end up in limbo. They’re not exactly denied, but the applicant doesn’t get a passport, either. The strategy, and please forgive Curmie for calling it as he sees it, is to delay, to pile on ridiculous new requirements, and delay some more. It is, to coin a phrase, Clintonesque. The result is the same as a denial, but there are two political advantages from the State Department’s perspective. First, State can make the kind of assertion noted above without exactly lying (merely actively misleading). But a denial is also far more likely to lead to a lawsuit—a lawsuit of the kind that plaintiffs win more often than not—than merely stalling until the applicant gives up… and there still isn’t a denial.
This stuff matters. Yes, there are leftie commentators who are comparing this issue to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II or even the worst excesses of Nazi Germany. Is that really where we are? Of course not. But have we taken far too many steps down a road towards a very nasty, xenophobic, and unjust nation? Oh, yes.
