Stateless

Yesterday I posted about Juan, born in southern Texas, who was denied when he tried to renew his passport. He was told that he really wasn’t a citizen. Alexandra Erin, in a long Twitter thread, delves into the implications.

Only affecting hundreds, maybe thousands of Latinx people so no need to worry? That’s way too many people. And if these people don’t have due process, nobody has due process. If the gov’t turned on you would your proof matter? Go read Kafka’s The Trial.

When the USA revokes your citizenship, it can’t bestow citizenship for another country. One becomes stateless, thrown into a legal limbo, an unperson. There is no home country to be sent to. I add that being stateless makes life quite difficult – and that cruelty is the point.

One person might be made stateless through a lack of due process. The gov’t need not do the same to others. If people like me are stripped of rights and arrested when applying for a passport, would I try to do the same? Would I go to the DMV or try to vote? Just having the threat of being stateless allows all sorts of bigoted people to enforce the rules on their own.

An example is a gay couple. When ant-sodomy laws were still on the books gay couples were assumed to be criminals because what they did in bedrooms was illegal. People felt justified in denying housing even if the gay couple is never convicted or even accused of anything.

Such an environment allows police to stop people on suspicion, at least people they don’t like. Increasingly broad rules applied to increasingly wider swaths of the population deployed by authorities when someone “looks” like trouble. Never mind there hasn’t been any trouble.

Refusal to renew passports is also happening to transgender people. This didn’t happen by Executive Order or even by a tweet from the nasty guy. It seems some federal employees decided it’s time to start doing it. There have always been bureaucrats “waiting for favorable winds to launch their warships.”

A lot of this enforcement is self-directed and from personal opinion (it also keeps the nasty guy’s hands clean). It is decentralized. And harder to block or attack.

But relax. The monster isn’t eating your whole body. It’s just eating a bite at a time.

What to do? “Make a lot of noise. If we are silent, we are complicit. If the only voices heard are those who support what's happening, they can claim universal assent.” Yell at your elected representatives. Vote. Talk is action, though it may not seem like it.



In a separate tweet Rep. Eric Swalwell commented on an article from Vox. House GOP made a list of nasty guy scandals. They’re afraid the Democrats will investigate these scandals if they win this fall. So that’s why the GOP had better stay in control of the House. Said Swalwell, “Umm, so if they know, why won’t they investigate?”