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The culture of the US has 2 parts that really don't like national IDs. A strong distrust of the federal government and a large number of evangelical christians. The natural distrust means that people generally don't want to give anything more to the federal government in general so it would take enormous political capital to add this. Second, the evangelical christians take end times prophesies from Revalation in the Bible very seriously. They believe that a national ID card is the "mark of the beast" that will be how the world is enslaved. It's a bit weird to outsiders, but it's a surprisingly common belief.

https://www.thefamilyinternational.org/en/viewpoints/future/...

> " It's a bit weird to outsiders, but it's a surprisingly common belief."

It's a bit weird to some of us Christians, too. :-) Some of us realize that the Bible is a book of metaphors and guidelines, not a literal future-history account. What John saw in his visions and how to interpret that has been a major source of discussion among religious scholars for a very long time now.

I am opposed to a national ID on a very specific point: It can be used as a tool for voter suppression if not done correctly.

> Some of us realize that the Bible is a book of metaphors and guidelines, not a literal future-history account.

The first time someone told me that the story of Adam and Eve was allegorical and not literal, it blew my mind.

I had grown up and been taught "literalism", in that everything that Bible said was literally the truth and not simply a story.

Serious question, how did you rationalize contradictions in the bible? The story of Adam and Eve directly contradicts the story of creation told immediately prior.

The Bible didn't make any sense to me until I took a religious studies course and learned that the old testament is basically the verbal tradition of the ancient Jewish people in written form. I had tried reading the bible when I was much younger, and the contradictions were so absurd I started highlighting them, and I ran out of highlighter before I ran out of Bible. I'm still not religious, but at least religion kind of makes sense to me now.

> I am opposed to a national ID on a very specific point: It can be used as a tool for voter suppression if not done correctly.

Having a free, low barrier, nationally accepted ID would help to disarm the weapon of voter suppression by ID demands.

> "Having a free, low barrier"

I agree, but the current administration would never allow either metric, because they don't want voter suppression to go away, they want to broaden and empower it. I am wholeheartedly disgusted with the state of our national government but I feel powerless to do anything about it. I vote (usually Independent/Libertarian/Democrat in that order as available on the ballot) and I contribute to organizations, but I'm just one person in a deep red state.

> I am opposed to a national ID on a very specific point: It can be used as a tool for voter suppression if not done correctly.

We can solve it by making it the duty of the government to provide everyone with ID cards, not the other way. This is an even easier problem than universal healthcare.

But of course, "the government is always inefficient!" crowd will fight tooth and nail to keep it from happening.

The fact that almost any other democratic country in the world have a national id for decades (since 1965 in Brazil for ex) demonstrate that there is no obstacle in that.

Neither New Zealand nor Australia have national ID cards, for what it's worth.

> It can be used as a tool for voter suppression if not done correctly.

I can see that somewhat but voter ID requirements and legislation in specific states can already be used for it. A free national ID would make it easier and would even fix or prevent abuses from individual states.

Besides if countries like India, which have more corruption, more poverty and fight with such issues like open defecation can manage to provide IDs to more than 95% of its population (and some states have close to 100%) surely we can do it as well.

In the past I would have agreed that state-level voter suppression was more likely, but this administration is pure evil and would potentially be far worse given that kind of power.

~10% of Americans don't have any kind of photo ID, although I've never heard the religious angle before

http://www.projectvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/AMERIC...

What do you think is preventing them getting photo IDs? The cost of it? Maybe it can be free or subsidized for lower income citizens. Somehow India, a much more poor country solved this mostly, it would seem we can solve it too.

maybe policy shouldn't be based on a minority of insane religious zealots.

They're not a minority in the US, either politically or culturally.

Evangelicals are.

Hopefully he gets some money out of this. Can't imagine being grabbed, held in a cell somewhere, and then told I had to be deported all of the sudden.

From the article:

> On Wednesday, attorneys for Carrillo announced a settlement deal in which the government will pay him $20,000 to resolve a civil lawsuit he filed over the arrest.

Saw that. I wish he'd gotten more than that. $20k seems like a slap on the wrist to the agency.

For being detained for 4 days, though? It seems reasonable to me for mistakenly arresting him. It doesn't excuse what sounds like unkind and rude behavior from the officers, though, which they shouldn't be doing even when really deporting someone.

4 days of mental anguish and distress is worth more than that. It's a stress and pain that will stay with a person for a long time. It also has to be enough of a deterrent so that the agency is more careful next time.

Sounds extremely low. They violated his rights.

In most states, no form of ID is required to vote. You walk in to your polling place and tell them your name and address. The vetting takes place during the voter registration process which either puts your name on the Voter Roll or not. You walk into the designated place that has your name in the book, and then you sign in as having received a ballot, on the line listing your name and address.

The last poll worker who asked me for an ID, I told them ID was not required in order to vote. They handed me my ballot, without even a single word of argument. It's not illegal for them to ask either; it's just a form of voter suppression instituted by either the Country Registrar, the District Supervisor or the Precinct Head.

How can you expect to not have fraud?

Right, because it’s easy to guess someone’s name and address and polling place. And to mimick their signature, which can be easily scanned and compared with the registration form. The Registrar can invalidate a voter’s registration on that basis.

The myth of voter fraud in the US has been debunked time and time again, just Google it for yourself. Voter fraud is a big distraction from the real Election Fraud that’s going on. Like the Democrat-appointed Country Registrar in Los Angeles who neglected to inform Precinct Leaders by law they were supposed to display the write-in candidates (like Bernie Sanders) on the table where people sign in. I toured 3 different precincts in my neighborhood and got into it with each Precinct Leader and showed them the CA Election Code to convince them to properly display the write-in lists. And then I tracked down the District Election Supervisor who told me no instructions were given about write-ins and he was upset about it too.

Or like the 5 Berner’s I know personally who had their registration changed to mail-in, through no action on their part. The dirty trick there is the voter is handed a provisional ballot when they show up at their polling place.

You don't need to guess people's name and address. And it can be systematic. And you can, with little effort, make it hard for a group of people to go to vote.

Signatures can be scanned and compared, but are they? I imagine this would only happen during a full audit, which doesn't sound like it happens a lot.

It is kind of like saying a door can be locked.

> why don't people have national ID cards in US

The passport serves that.

Passports cost money and are only issued to citizens. An ID card could be issued to permanent residents, long term visa holders even. It would be smaller in size, have a public key based digital signature chip on it, etc. Basically more of a non-crappy social security card.

> It also violates decency and common sense as well, and veers into plain old brutality.

Yup.

This should result in a large settlement, and punishment ranging from minor discipline to jail time for the officers involved.