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So I was watching an episode of Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends yesterday and it featured a family of non immigrants who were undocumented , which is why I thought it would be cool to start up a thread about the subject on the good ol City of Data ...
Aforementioned family was headed by self described survivalist adults ( the episode itself was about survivalists by the way ) who rejected the use of documents due to their belief in rejecting so called New World Order mandates , however I don't intend on limiting the scope of this thread to such a narrow focus .
Anyways post away any and all information about this ( IMO ) rather fascinating part of the population .
I'm confused … they were born here but don't have birth certificates or something?
The people featured in that documentary I mentioned destroyed all their identifying documents before moving to a remote survivalist compound in Idaho , however I've also read of US born people who fit into the category of being undocumented as a result of simply being born off the grid so to speak ...
In other words said individuals weren't born in hospitals and got homeschooled all their lives , which resulted in them lacking any sort of identifying documents upon reaching adulthood .
The people featured in that documentary I mentioned destroyed all their identifying documents before moving to a remote survivalist compound in Idaho , however I've also read of US born people who fit into the category of being undocumented as a result of simply being born off the grid so to speak ...
In other words said individuals weren't born in hospitals and got homeschooled all their lives , which resulted in them lacking any sort of identifying documents upon reaching adulthood .
I hope that puts things a bit into perspective .
yeah but that's such a small % of people. How would you be able to get a job if there's no record of you ever being born, how do you get a drivers license, how do you enroll in school? This doesn't make any sense to me ...
I have heard of this and heard what a terrible struggle children raised in these circumstances have to establish their citizenship and identity. It is a truly selfish, cruel thing for a parent to do to a child. It's one thing to "take yourself off the grid." Fine, go ahead, destroy all paperwork and live with the consequences. But don't do it to your children.
In the classic movie "The Big Lebowski", the character known as "The Dude" has no means of identification besides his Ralph's card. (Ralph's is a Southern California supermarket chain). So he was an undocumented non-immigrant living in LA.
yeah but that's such a small % of people. How would you be able to get a job if there's no record of you ever being born, how do you get a drivers license, how do you enroll in school? This doesn't make any sense to me ...
Correct, it doesn't make any sense, but the people that do this to their kids aren't very sensible. There was an episode of This American Life where they talked with a woman in Texas that grew up on a compound with her parents, who were "Sovereign Citizens," basically right wing conspiracy nuts who worry about "The New World Order." She was born at home, her parents didn't report the birth so no birth certificate, no SSN, she was home schooled, no school records, no pediatrician visits or vaccines, etc. When she rejected her family's delusions and left the compound to live with her maternal aunt, she had no identification or necessary documents, couldn't get a driver's license because she didn't have any of the forms of ID that could be accepted to establish her identity, couldn't enroll in college classes, couldn't get a job, and basically was caught up in a bureaucratic nightmare.
The system presupposes that everyone follows the law and reports births to the county health dept, so everyone that was born in the US has a birth certificate, whether they were born at home or in a hospital. All other ID documents flow from that birth certificate, so if you don't have one, in many cases their aren't exceptions built into the law to get the other forms of ID. Outside of conspiracy nuts, pretty much everyone has one, but if I remember that story correctly, the Texas State Legislature actually had to pass a bill to make it so crazy people's children could get the birth certificate they need to function in the US without all of the usually required supporting documents that they didn't have.
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