{"id":5841,"date":"2025-12-23T20:28:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T04:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abovecloud.xyz\/?p=5841"},"modified":"2025-12-23T20:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T04:29:09","slug":"its-sad-we-have-to-do-this-the-us-citizens-carrying-passports-out-of-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abovecloud.xyz\/?p=5841","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s sad we have to do this\u2019: the US citizens carrying passports out of fear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Across the US, people have been carrying their passports amid reports of ICE detaining citizens. Five people explain what living this reality is like<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n



Across the United States, citizens say they have started carrying their passports with them through their daily activities as widespread immigration raids create a pervasive climate of fear, and reports of\u00a0citizens being detained<\/a>\u00a0circulate in the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guardian talked to people living this reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Munira Maalimisaq,\u00a0Minneapolis<\/strong>

Munira Maalimisaq, a family nurse practitioner who runs a clinic in Minneapolis, started carrying her passport with her daily on 2 December, as federal agents surged in the city after Trump repeatedly targeted Somalis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maalimisaq has been a naturalized US citizen for more than two decades; she came to the US as a child from Somalia. She previously only carried her passport when traveling in other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her clinic, Inspire Change Clinic, with a mission to serve marginalized communities, is located in an area where ICE agents have been targeting the local residents. Her patients have expressed fear about coming to the clinic, leading her to start a rapid response effort to provide more telehealth appointments and safe rides if needed. When patients check in at the clinic, more and more have presented their passports rather than a driver\u2019s license, something she hadn\u2019t seen previously.

\u201cWe have a lot of patients that may be targeted,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd because of that, I know that I may come in contact with [federal agents]. And for that, I want to make sure that I go home safely to my kids and simply for my own safety, I feel like, if I have my passport and I have my ID with me, I can show it, and hopefully that itself will be sufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She knows some people may be pulled over because they look like immigrants. In the Minneapolis area, and nationwide, people who are US citizens have been detained. She notes that she wears a headscarf: \u201cI do look like an immigrant. It\u2019s not something that I can hide who I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor me, it didn\u2019t stop me from working and doing everything that needs to be done, but just taking extra precautions, and the passport was my safety net,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one should have to carry a passport just to exist safely in their own city.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Rachel Leingang<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walter Cruz Perez,\u00a0Kenner, Louisiana<\/strong>

Walter Cruz Perez has been a US citizen since 2022, six years after immigrating to the US from his native Guatemala with legal permanent residency. He used to never think twice about only carrying his driver\u2019s license while going about his life in Kenner, Louisiana, running his successful landscaping and gardening business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then the second Trump administration embarked on its campaign to deport as many immigrants as possible. Kenner, with a relatively large Hispanic population, became a focus of that effort when federal agents descended on the New Orleans suburb in early December. Cruz, 58, began seeing stories<\/a> in the media<\/a> of Latino US citizens without their American passports readily on hand being at least temporarily detained<\/a> by immigration agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cruz said none of those agents seen scouring Kenner\u2019s streets had approached him. But if they did, he surmised his accent would betray that he is a native Spanish speaker as well as an immigrant. He also joked that his short height and belly could make him seem like a particularly soft target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So now Cruz said he is in the habit of putting his passport in his cellphone case while he tends to his landscaping in case any of the agents seen scouring the streets of his city in recent days eventually approach him. He always makes sure to put it in a zip lock bag to protect it from inclement weather and keep it in the best shape possible \u2013 out of fear an agent may doubt the document\u2019s authenticity if it gets too worn down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s stressful,\u201d said Cruz. \u201cBut you see on the news that people don\u2019t have the chance to identify themselves \u2026 so you do what you have to do to avoid problems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Ramon Antonio Vargas<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carola Lopez,<\/strong> outside New Orleans<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Carola Lopez, an educator who lives outside New Orleans, grew up in the Latino US territory of Puerto Rico. And despite the fact that Puerto Ricans are US citizens, she became accustomed to being asked by other Americans why she and her people spoke Spanish, and even if she paid taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she had been carrying her US passport with her in her car since the time in 2015 when authorities stopped her for no apparent reason near Houston while traveling there to watch star singer Ricky Martin \u2013 her fellow Puerto Rican \u2013 perform in a concert. And she said she was making sure to stick to that practice given the ongoing immigration crackdown as well as the stories in the media of US citizens being detained temporarily by agents in some instances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez said she would never understand \u201cwhy we have to carry our passports and be afraid of being detained despite having US citizenship\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI bring it around to avoid getting into uncomfortable situations with the authorities,\u201d Lopez said.

She added: \u201cIt\u2019s really sad that we have to do this and that Americans are living in these times. I never thought I\u2019d feel like I have to prove where I\u2019m from \u2026 and that we are from the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Ramon Antonio Vargas<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miguel Rios,<\/strong> Los Angeles<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Miguel Rios, a 49-year-old born and raised in Los Angeles, and his family started carrying copies of their passports once the immigration raids began in the region earlier this year. He cancelled planned road trips to Utah and northern California, and discouraged his parents from going to large family functions where they might be more vulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as a US citizen, Rios, who works in aquarium and pond maintenance, was concerned when the Trump administration began mass sweeps across Los Angeles. But the turning point came when he heard from an associate at work that their relative, a US citizen, had been erroneously 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 an operation at a Home Depot near his house. That was when he decided to carry additional identification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Rios said he felt there was little he could do to protect himself. \u201cMy sister taught me how to go Instagram live, that\u2019s all I got going on \u2026 I have a dash cam on my truck. That\u2019s kind of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The supreme court ruling<\/a> that federal agents can stop people in Los Angeles for speaking Spanish or appearing Latino was particularly upsetting, he said, and it had been difficult to see the widespread impacts of the administration\u2019s deportations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really scary for the elders,\u201d Rios said. \u201cYou\u2019re tearing families apart. The numbers have come out, it\u2019s not like they\u2019re catching criminals. You\u2019re going to workplaces \u2013 that\u2019s not where the criminals hang out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Dani Anguiano<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ana,<\/strong> southern California<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For Ana*, a middle-aged educator based in southern California, the danger came into focus with the detainment of Andrea Velez<\/a>. The US citizen was on her way to work in downtown Los Angeles when masked men suddenly picked her up and dragged her into a vehicle parked nearby. The men were US immigration officials. Velez was charged with assaulting an officer, but the charge was later dismissed. During the incident, her mother and sister watched nearby but were afraid to intervene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ana, a US citizen and the daughter of Mexican immigrants, watched the news coverage, horrified by what Velez experienced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought if that happened to her that could happen to me. That could happen to anybody who looks like me or sounds like me,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I\u2019m just buying a taco at a taco truck, speaking Spanish. You never know. It\u2019s just a reminder you are not what they consider fully American.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know I am. [But] this is an administration that says \u2018you don\u2019t belong\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, she carries her passport and ID at all times: \u201cI\u2019m a citizen but nonetheless I feel the need to carry my damn passport.\u201d She\u2019s gone to marches and talked to city council and tried to ensure her students, who have family members who have been deported, know their rights. But she fears the erosion of basic human rights and due process in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a very dangerous moment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Dani Anguiano<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Ana asked for her last name not to be used because she\u2019s afraid for her safety and fears she will be targeted for speaking out<\/em>

Reproduced from The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Across the US, people have been carrying their passport […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5080,1978,5082],"class_list":["post-5841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa","tag-carrying","tag-citizens","tag-passports"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018It\u2019s sad we have to do this\u2019: the US citizens carrying passports out of fear - abovecloud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/abovecloud.xyz\/?p=5841\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"zh_CN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018It\u2019s sad we have to do this\u2019: the US citizens carrying passports out of fear - 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