For fellow Americans living in cities where ICE is active, many people, especially those of Hispanic descent, are already carrying around passports on their persons at all times because they’re rightfully afraid of being forcibly disappeared or deported to some random South American country.

A passport card can be obtained for $30 from the Department of State. It is considered exactly equivalent to a passport within the US, but it’s the size of a credit card. It is a valid travel document for land and sea travel within North America and the Caribbean. It also counts as a Real ID. The card is good for ten years.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/need-passport/card.html

Do not do this if you are transgender or have an X gender marker. They will cancel your passport and tell you to apply for a new one with your sex assigned at birth.

  • mech@feddit.org
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    10 days ago

    YSK a card in your wallet won’t help you much when an ICE agent points a gun at your head and tells you your passport looks fake, without even looking at it.

    • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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      10 days ago

      If this form factor for ID isn’t well known enough for them to know about it, I doubt they received training on its existence.

      Which means having this card will make them assume it’s fake by default. “That’s not what a US passport looks like!” Thereby increasing their deluded suspicions, rather than reducing them.

      • Hawke@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        The problem is not lack of training. This isn’t a “whoopsie-poopsie”. They’re doing it on purpose and if someone looks brown enough they get kidnapped. With luck they get released later.

      • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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        10 days ago

        They already did this to people with Real ID drivers licenses, which have the same requirements to acquire as a passport.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      The main advantage is that it’s a redundant form of citizenship ID. ICE can always say it is fake and confiscate it, but then you have your passport book waiting at home for your lawyer to take to the detention center to get you out (once they find out where they took you).