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You can't refuse to be scanned by ICE's facial recognition app, DHS document say

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579 points nh43215rgb | 4 comments | 01 Nov 25 08:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.96s | source
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noodlesUK ◴[01 Nov 25 12:39 UTC] No.45781183[source]▶
This is going to be a huge pain. The US has a very fragmented identity system, and "move fast and break things" approaches like this to bring information from across government systems well outside the scope of what that information was collected for will result in real problems.

I worry what this app and systems like it might mean for me. I'm a US citizen, but I used to be an LPR. I never naturalized - I got my citizenship automatically by operation of law (INA 320, the child citizenship act). At some point I stopped being noodlesUK (LPR) and magically became noodlesUK (US Citizen), but not through the normal process. Presumably this means that there are entries in USCIS's systems that are orphaned, that likely indicate that I am an LPR who has abandoned their status, or at least been very bad about renewing their green card.

I fear that people in similar situations to my own might have a camera put in their face, some old database record that has no chance of being updated will be returned, and the obvious evidence in front of an officer's eyes, such as a US passport will be ignored. There are probably millions of people in similar situations to me, and millions more with even more complex statuses.

I know people who have multiple citizenships with multiple names, similar to this person: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45531721. Will these hastily deployed systems be able to cope with the complex realities of real people?

EDIT: LPR is lawful permanent resident, i.e., green card holder

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matthewdgreen ◴[01 Nov 25 15:43 UTC] No.45782567[source]▶
The correct answer is that you’re a US citizen unless proved not to be. That’s how the US has always worked, since we’ve made a long-term societal decision not to require papers or allow extrajudicial treatment of our people. This app and everything behind it is foundationally wrong and unamerican.
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refurb ◴[02 Nov 25 04:39 UTC] No.45787874[source]▶
You’re ignoring the cases where people produce fraudulent documentation proving they are a citizen.

Do you just throw up your hands “i guess there is nothing we can do”?

What I find entertaining as a non-US citizen is how border enforcement is table stakes in every other country I’ve lived in (5 so far). Even the left doesn’t question it, it’s a basic function of a government.

Even the less developed countries have relatively straightforward enforcement. You produce proof you’re there legally or you’re put on the next flight home.

Since I lived in the US people keep asking me why some Americans don’t want border security. I don’t have a good answer.

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habinero ◴[02 Nov 25 05:56 UTC] No.45788114[source]▶
> You’re ignoring the cases where people produce fraudulent documentation proving they are a citizen.

Citation needed lol.

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refurb ◴[02 Nov 25 07:29 UTC] No.45788500[source]▶
“In Fiscal Year 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in the Cincinnati area alone intercepted and identified more than 6,800 fraudulent, counterfeit, or stolen documents.”

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cincinnati-...

That ONE CBP office in the US. And it’s not even in a state with a high population of illegal aliens. There are 20 offices in the US.

And sure creating fraudulent documents from scratch isn’t easy. But it’s not that hard to use someone else’s identity to get documents that support US citizenship. Hell, a paper social security card is proof as long as it doesn’t say “NOT WORK AUTHORIZED on it.

So it wouldn’t even be that unusual to locate an alien that the database says (correctly) has a deportation order but for them to claim US citizenship and even produce a document that looks like they are.

You can even read a nice CBP report on the problems they have with fraudulent documents.

https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2025-09/O...

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1. matthewdgreen ◴[02 Nov 25 18:51 UTC] No.45792466[source]▶
With due respect, that problem is on CBP. I am somewhat (albeit decreasingly) sympathetic to the unique challenges that immigration enforcement agencies face in the US. We live in a country where the citizens have decided democratically that no US citizen will ever have to carry proof of US citizenship, and moreover, that national ID and standardized proof-of-citizenship passports should not even be mandatory for citizens to possess, let alone carry. We even decided that the Federal Government should be explicitly banned from creating those forms of ID.

We made these decisions for various reasons, but broadly because the voters felt that US citizenship and lawfullness should be presumptions, rather than something you had to prove in order to enjoy your rights as a citizen.

For an immigration agent, this is really tough. You have to identify unauthorized immigrants in an environment where you can't just require lawful citizens to carry ID or proof of citizenship. You legally can't arrest or (more than briefly) detain a US citizen for failure to carry citizenship documents. You have to walk on eggshells even with actual unauthorized immigrants, to avoid violating the law. And our proof-of-identity document systems are deliberately decentralized and unreliable, so you can't just check a master database. It's a tough problem!

But that's the way the cookie crumbles. We designed our society to make this kind of "papers please" enforcement difficult, which means that immigration enforcement needs to be smarter and more savvy, or else we need to actually change the laws. What ICE and CBP are trying to do now is just to ignore the law, and that doesn't work. Citizens' built this law to protect their rights; you can't just take away those rights because CBP have a tough job.

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2. refurb ◴[03 Nov 25 00:32 UTC] No.45794723[source]▶
Nobody is saying citizens need to carry papers.

My only point is that when a deportation order shows a name and face, people can still produce fraudulent documents showing they are a citizen.

It’s not a uniquely American problem.

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3. habinero ◴[03 Nov 25 06:11 UTC] No.45796308[source]▶
6,000 supposed papers for a pool of 5 million immigrants seems like an extremely minor problem that doesn't require shooting food bank workers to enforce.
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4. refurb ◴[03 Nov 25 07:28 UTC] No.45796661{3}[source]▶
Again, that’s 6,000 papers from a relatively quiet USCBP office where illegal immigration rates are low.

If you want a national estimate that grossly undercounts, just multiply by the 20 field offices. Now we’re in the hundreds of thousands.