‘It’s sad we have to do this’: the US citizens carrying passports out of fear | US immigration
A.Citizens crossing the United States say they have begun carrying their passports with them during their daily activities because widespread immigration raids have created a widespread climate of fear. detained citizens Surf the media.
The Guardian spoke to people living this reality.
Munira Maalimisaq, Minneapolis
Munira Maalimisaq, a family nurse practitioner who runs a clinic in Minneapolis, started carrying her passport in her daypack on Dec. 2 as federal agents descended on the city after Trump repeatedly targeted Somalis.
Maalimisaq has been a naturalized U.S. citizen for more than two decades; He came to the United States as a child from Somalia. Previously, he only carried his passport with him when traveling to other countries.
Her clinic, Inspire Change Clinic, with a mission to serve marginalized communities, is located in an area where ICE agents target local residents. His patients expressed fear of coming to the clinic, prompting him to launch a rapid response effort to provide more telehealth appointments and safe travel if necessary. When patients register at the clinic, more and more patients show their passports instead of their driver’s license; This is something he hasn’t seen before.
“We have a lot of patients that can be targeted,” he said. “And so, I know that I can contact (federal agents). For that, I want to make sure that I get home to my kids safely, and just for my own safety, if I have my passport and ID, I can show that and hopefully that will be enough.”
He knows some people might get pulled over because they look like immigrants. U.S. citizens were detained in the Minneapolis area and across the country. She states that she wears a headscarf: “I look like an immigrant. This is not something I can hide who I am.”
“For me, it didn’t stop me from working and doing whatever needed to be done, it just made me take extra precautions and the passport was my safety net,” he said.
“No one needs to carry a passport to live safely in their own city.”
–Rachel Leingang
Walter Cruz Perez Kenner, Louisiana
Walter Cruz Perez has been a U.S. citizen since 2022, six years after immigrating from his native Guatemala to the United States as a lawful permanent resident. While living his life in Kenner, Louisiana, running his successful landscaping and gardening business, he would never think twice about carrying just his driver’s license.
But then the second Trump administration began a campaign to deport as many immigrants as possible. Kenner, which has a relatively large Hispanic population, became the focus of that effort when federal agents raided the New Orleans suburb in early December. Cruz, 58, began seeing stories in the media of Latino U.S. citizens being detained at least temporarily by immigration officials without American passports.
Cruz said he was not approached by any of the agents seen combing the streets of Kenner. But if so, he surmised, his accent would give away that he was a native Spanish speaker as well as an immigrant. He also joked that his short stature and paunch might make him seem like a particularly soft target.
Cruz said he now has a habit of putting his passport in his cell phone case while he’s tending to landscaping in case he is approached by any of the agents who have been roaming his city’s streets lately. He always makes a point of putting it in a ziplock bag to protect it from inclement weather and to keep it in the best possible condition—for fear that an agent might doubt the document’s authenticity if it gets too worn.
“It’s a stressful situation,” Cruz said. “But you see on the news that people don’t have a chance to identify themselves… so you do what you have to do to avoid problems.”
–Ramon Vargas
Carola Lopez, outside of new orleans
Carola Lopez, an educator living outside New Orleans, grew up in Puerto Rico, a Latino region of the United States. And even though Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, he has become accustomed to being asked by other Americans why he and his people speak Spanish and even if they pay taxes.
He said he had been carrying his U.S. passport in his car since 2015, when authorities stopped him for no apparent reason near Houston to watch a concert performance by star Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin. He said he would stick to that practice given the ongoing crackdown on immigration as well as media stories of U.S. citizens being temporarily detained by agents in some cases.
Lopez said he could never understand “why we have to carry our passports and are afraid of being detained even though we have US citizenship.”
“I bring this with me to avoid getting into uncomfortable situations with the authorities,” Lopez said.
He added: “It’s really sad that we have to do this and that Americans live in these times. I never thought I’d have to prove where I’m from and that we’re from the United States.”
–Ramon Vargas
Miguel Ríos, Los Angeles
Born and raised in Los Angeles, 49-year-old Miguel Rios and his family started carrying copies of their passports when immigration raids began in the region at the beginning of this year. He canceled planned road trips to Utah and Northern California and discouraged his parents from going to big family events where they might be more vulnerable.
Although Rios, who works in aquarium and pond maintenance, is a U.S. citizen, he was concerned that the Trump administration was beginning to carry out mass cleanups in Los Angeles. But the turning point came when she heard from an employee at work that their relative, a U.S. citizen, had been mistakenly detained and taken to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing facility in the Southern California desert. Around the same time, ICE agents used a moving truck for a sting operation at the Home Depot near his home. That’s when he decided to carry additional identification.
But Rios said he felt there was little he could do to protect himself. “My sister taught me how to go live on Instagram, that’s all I do… I have a dashcam in my truck. That’s right.”
He said the Supreme Court ruling that federal agents could stop people in Los Angeles because they spoke Spanish or appeared to be Latino was particularly distressing, and that it was difficult to see the widespread effects of the administration’s deportations.
“It’s really scary for older people,” Rios said. “You’re tearing families apart. The numbers are up, it’s like they’re not catching criminals. You go to businesses; that’s not where criminals hang out.”
– Dani Anguiano
Main, Southern California
The danger for Ana*, a middle-aged educator living in Southern California, came when Andrea Velez was taken into custody. The US citizen was on his way to work in downtown Los Angeles when masked men suddenly picked him up and dragged him to a vehicle parked nearby. The men were US immigration officials. Velez was accused of assaulting a police officer, but the charge was later dismissed. His mother and sister watched nearby during the incident but were afraid to intervene.
Ana, a U.S. citizen and daughter of Mexican immigrants, watched the news, horrified by Velez’s experience.
“I thought if this could happen to him, it could happen to me. This could happen to anyone who looks like me or sounds like me,” he said. “If I’m just getting a taco from a taco truck and I’m speaking Spanish. You never know. It’s just a reminder that you’re not who they see as all-American.”
“I know I am. [But] “This is an administration that says ‘You don’t belong.'”
He now carries his passport and ID with him at all times: “I’m a citizen, but I still feel the need to carry my damn passport.” He went to marches, met with the city council, and tried to ensure that students whose families had been deported knew their rights. But he fears the erosion of basic human rights and due process in the United States.
“This is a very dangerous moment,” he said.
– Dani Anguiano
*Ana asked that her last name not be used because she fears for her safety and that she will be targeted for speaking out
