(Disclosure: It’s my blog post)
The sheriff of Butler County, Ohio, one Richard K. Jones, who gives “Yosemite Sam meets diabeetus,” legit wrote a letter to DJT — cc’d to Elon, no less — saying that immigration visas were “too confusing” for local law enforcement. I wasn’t joking about his look.
Then held a Facebook Live/press conference to… apparently brag about how unintelligent he thinks law enforcement is.
Of course, behind the cringe is the simple fact that we’re looking at a bully who is so unintelligent that he has to ask who the “bad guys” are. A bully who knows who the bigger bullies are, and thinks that there is absolutely nothing wrong with displaying both his lack of intelligence and his willingness to bully others to the public at large.
And judging by the comments on his post, he’s sadly right.
They already have a solution for this already implemented. If you’re not a citizen, you have to carry identification that shows you are allowed to be here. It’s what is called your green card (though it’s not green). Not carrying it is already punishable by anything from a hefty fee to deportation. All legal immigrants already know this. Citizens (naturalized or not) do not need to carry papers (yet).
If they can read a driver’s license, they can read a green card.
Green cards are for permanent residents, not all immigrants.
Sorry, that was poor phrasing on my part. I meant to say one of the types of id is your green card. You have other types of id before you get the PR card.
They don’t, though. Not for all valid immigration statuses. For example, while a friend of mine was here on a student visa, they simply had their visa, their drivers license (which not everyone would have), and their foreign passport.
I’d say it would actually be a fantastic idea to have some kind of immigration identification card for people who are here legally but are not peanent residents. Something simple that dumb law enforcement officers can accept as firm proof of legal status.
I actually don’t think this sheriff is wrong when he says we need a simpler method of identifying whether someone is legally here. I likely disagree with him in everything else but I agree with him on this.
This is a common misconception and it’s mostly fine, due to lack of enforcement. However, section 264(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) says:
I found this via an article by Capitol Immigration.