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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

I don't really trust YT as a source for any kind of facts. CBP is pretty specific about documentation required to enter the country. If you're a citizen and you lack any documentation, you're going to be sitting around for hours while they determine (to their satisfaction) that you're who you claim to be.

It would also only really apply at a land crossing, I imagine. You can't even get on a plane that's entering the US without showing your passport at the departure gate. At that point your only option if you really are without documentation is to find the nearest US consulate and get some travel papers.

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We're not talking about entering the country; we're talking about CBP's absurd "interior checkpoints". They'll set up roadblocks on a random highway well inside Texas or Arizona or whatever, and stop everyone driving by to ask them about their citizenship status.

You don't really have to "trust YT" here; there are plenty of videos of the encounters themselves, where people stubbornly refuse to answer the CBP agent's questions until the agent gives up and waves them through. Sure, you can argue that they're staged or something, but the sheer number of them would at least put some doubt on that claim.

> CBP is pretty specific about documentation required to enter the country.

My last flight to Seattle from Mexico a few weeks ago (also, note that I'm an LPR, and not a citizen) I walked up to the CBP immigration counter, looked at a webcam, the officer looked at his computer, said "[my name]?" "Yes." "You're good to go."

I had, of course, my passport and green card on me, but they were held by my side the entire time. He didn't ask for them.

They have linked your face to the photo in your passport/green card. By looking into the camera you agreed for them to perform the lookup of your ID. It is probably more secure than looking at a physical ID that could be fake.

green card holder here, this exact thing happened to me last time i flew into US from EU. i even asked the CBP guy, "you don't need to see my passport or green card"? "nope" was the response as he waved me through.

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