Papers please

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Links

Projects

• Papers Please!, aka The Identity Project: "...explores and defends the fundamental American right to move freely around our country and to live without constantly having to prove who we are or why we are here."

News

• 2026-01-16 17:39 UTC [L..T] Family of U.S. citizen detained by ICE in St. Paul seeks her release «Nasra Ahmed, 23, left her family’s apartment complex on Lower Afton Road in St. Paul around 11 a.m. Wednesday on the way to the pharmacy to pick up her medicine. A car occupied by at least two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled into the parking lot and demanded to see her papers.» Despite being a US citizen born in Minnesota who had never even been to Somalia, the «ICE agents detained her anyway, leaving her family uncertain of her whereabouts for at least 24 hours. Her father, Mohamed Ahmed, called [state Rep. Samakab] Hussein in tears, pleading for any information, and the representative tracked her to the Sherburne County Jail, where she’s being held without bail pending possible felony charges.»
• 2026-01-16 17:13 UTC [L..T] Kristi Noem Says Americans Should Be Prepared to Prove Their Citizenship as ICE Ramps Up Raids «Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Thursday, Jan. 15, Noem was asked why ICE and border agents have seemingly questioned people about their citizenship, and whether she expects Americans to be carrying around proof in case they are stopped.» ...not that agents cared, in many cases where people were detained even when they had proof. Noem said: «If we are on a target and doing an operation, there may be individuals surrounding that criminal that we may be asking who they are and why they’re there and having them validate their identity. [..] That’s what we’ve always done in asking people who they are so that we know who’s in those surroundings.» Pretty sure this is a lie, unless "we" specifically means "ICE under Trump".
• 2017-12-04 [L..T] Review: Between Planets by Robert A. Heinlein «The security procedures Don has to go through before boarding the suborbital shuttle to New Chicago is another of those things that would not be at all surprising to a modern reader accustomed to TSA manhandling on airplane security lines. However, for a reader at the time it was originally published, it would have been a very clear sign that this was not entirely a bright future, for all that it had an interplanetary frontier of wide-open spaces and readily accessible spaceflight to take you there. Back in the 1950's, that sort of "papers please" scrutiny was something that happened in Those Countries Over There, not in the US. Which upon reflection does not say much good about the current US security state.»