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:
(e) Personal possession of registration or receipt card; penalties
Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d). Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.
I found this via an article by Capitol Immigration.
So... Cops want to act like ICE (which is not currently allowed judging by the challenges to the Texas law regarding that) but are too dumb? Or are they just trying to invalidate all current visas ahead of the mass deportations I hear are on the horizon?
No idea about visas and their nomenclature, but this can't be all that hard to resolve with computers that everyone has in their pocket today? Also why would police even involve itself into cheking validity or conditions of specific visas?
If you have an interaction with someone with a visa it help if you can tell if the visa is legit. And if the paper one is all you have because the person can't/won't access a digital version (idk if that's even a thing) then that's all you have to work with.
Agreed, for me it feels as these problems mostly stem from lack of universal id in US, as in modern ones that have all information on them.
Who cares about the guy's look he's asking to streamline a process. Odds are nobody else will listen because he's just a Sheriff so he's asking someone who just might get the ball rolling.
Anyone in government knows that the only thing worse than the paperwork is trying to change something. I can't blame him for trying.