Opinion/Editorial
IF YOU SHOULD GO…
What has happened to international travel that you must become aware of before you endeavor to go to the trouble of updating or getting a passport for such travel?
The world didn’t change, but the USA did. If you have not noticed the authoritarian leaning of the country since the new administration took over then you have been in a coma for about seven months. It is time to wake up. You are a citizen reading this, that is presumed. You are probably a white citizen, as well, as this is Walworth County, Wisconsin. You feel privileged in not having to worry about all of the living hell that people living in the country without official citizenship face, although I am, hopefully, to your gain, dispelling that idea from the very beginning.
Defining what a citizen of the USA really is has become one of going from simplicity (born in the USA…citizen, naturalized…citizen, married to a citizen… not given automatic citizenship). Green cards allow for temporary, limited permission to stay and work in the USA and can be a path leading to naturalization. Since birthright citizenship has been called into question, that question should be answered by the exact wording of the Constitution (not necessarily accepted by this administration or its minions). Today, however, a citizen’s citizenship can be questioned for all sorts of reasons, like where the parents of the citizen are from or came from. What proof does one possess to prove citizenship, which is more problematic than one might think? A U.S. passport does not automatically confer proof of citizenship, although it is supposed to, while a birth certificate does, but it has to be the original hard copy birth certificate, and most people do not either possess that nor travel with it, and no a copy won’t do.
Why is all this important to consider when going abroad? Because the process of going abroad has changed so much when coming home. It’s easy to go, but it can be extremely difficult to return to this country. The current crop of ICE agents should be called thugs and not agents. Your rights and recognition when you come back into the USA are not what you think in dealing with these new jack-booted creatures wearing identity-hiding masks and no name tags. When you come home from international travel, you can be singled out for almost any imaginable reason and detained for questioning and providing identification and proof of citizenship. You are not dealing with immigration agents if referred to the ICE part of their organization. Your rights can disappear in seconds even though the Constitution says Americans all have the right to due process. The definition of due process has been reduced to almost nothing. You can then be denied entry and not even get to know why you are denied entry.
Remember, this happens when you are already back from your travel and standing inside a U.S. airport. Once denied entry, you do not get to come home. You must either get a flight out of the country or, if you cannot or will not do that, then you will be deported. No, there are no telephones in detention, so that old movie expression, “you get one phone call,” is now not true. If detained in a facility, like being taken to the Alligator Alcatraz, you will be allowed a call to your attorney…but, of course, most citizens in such circumstances won’t have an attorney, and no, you don’t get a yellow page either. Where can you be deported to if you can’t get to travel to another country?
A variety of countries in Africa, South America, and Central America. The Supreme Court allows this administration to deport people, and that has included U.S. citizens, to any country that will accept them. You could find yourself in a foreign land where you don’t speak the language and they don’t speak English. You could find yourself without money, credit cards that work, and being a helpless target for foreign predators. If you do manage to reach someone back in the USA, then they won’t be of much help to you. Aside from that, your emotional state will also disable you. It’s terrifying for most regular Americans to be thrown into such an ‘adventure’ and try to work through it. Don’t do that to yourself.
All over the place, parents are letting their children go abroad without the parents going along. Do not do this. Until the United States settles down from the insanity and inhumanity of the anti-immigration people in control, foreign travel should not be an option, and that includes traveling to Canada and Mexico as well. Stay home and survive to live another day. You’ve seen the conduct of ICE agents on television. Their training is aimed at being aggressively mean-spirited and physically confrontive, to put it mildly. Without identification or facial recognition, they can do just about anything to anyone they can isolate themselves from the public or nearby media. That includes taking your qualifying documents and destroying them. Yes, these are those times.
The police agencies around the country generally have a ‘protect and serve’ policy. printed on the sides of their patrol cars. ICE has no such motto. Physicians graduating from medical school also have a mantra, “First, I will do no harm,” as this is part of the Hippocratic oath. ICE is called ICE because it has no such motto or mantra, and its name is a perfect descriptor for the small heart beating inside their chests.
