Whenever I travel out of the country, I keep the passport locked in the safe.  I always have my wallet with me. 

Hell, even when I'm mowing the lawn I have my wallet with me.  If something bad happens, at least they have ID and can identify my body!

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004030-503544.html

51% of people think the law is about right, while 9% think it doesn't go far enough.

Out of the same sample, 50% of people think it is very likely the law will detain people of certain racial and ethnic groups more frequently than other racial and ethnic groups, while 32% say that prospect is somewhat likely.

What is the takeaway from that? There are Americans who are comfortable with racial profiling?

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Except for a year abroad, I've lived in California all of my life. I have never heard of this.

Whenever I travel out of the country, I keep the passport locked in the safe.  I always have my wallet with me. 

Hell, even when I'm mowing the lawn I have my wallet with me.  If something bad happens, at least they have ID and can identify my body!

and that is really good planning on your part...however, as an American Citizen...You don't have to have it with you.

As I citizen of the universe, I am never without my towel.

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For which, we are all grateful.

Which is the exact problem with this law - let's say you were born here, as were your parents and grand-parents and great-grandparents. You have no papers! You're 100% American!

Yet, you're still a brown latino, and you're walking down the street with a bag of fertilizer you bought at the store that you need for your lawn - you get stopped and they demand your papers. Which you wouldn't even have, being a citizen in the first place.

Since this seems to be the political catch-all thread, I found this article very interesting...

A Hyper-Inflationary Great Depression Is Coming

Talking with our Realtor over a year ago, he mentioned many of the same things this article does.  Really scary for all concerned, Americans and the rest of the world, if this does come true.

Aren't legal foreign nationals supposed to carry ID with them anyway?  Passport, green card, something like that?

Jeff, as a LEGAL immigrant to this country, I carry around a little plastic card with me that's entitled "Permanent Resident Card" (aka Green Card). It has my photo, my fingerprint, and a host of biometric data on an inch-and-a-half wide magnetic strip on the back (including retna scan and a three-dimensional picture of my head that was taken by a really cool camera). My card must be renewed every 10 years and all the data updated.

I am required to show this card along with my passport whenever I return to the United States through customs. I am required to present this card to my employers upon hiring to prove I am eligible for work in this country. And if stopped by law enforcement -- say for a traffic infraction -- I am required to produce this card along with my driver's license.

Just like an old Warner Brothers, I always have to make sure that my "papers are in order".

I had a friend who lived in California who told me it was illegal for anyone to walk off their own property in that State without ID, and I thought that was pretty much true anywhere in the US. It isn't?

Al, what you may be remembering is in California under the Vehicle Code you are required to produce your driver's license when stopped by the police. Failure to produce is an infraction, although I believe you have 24 hours to remedy the infraction without penalty.

I'd like offer a slightly different spin on the debate. The words legal and illegal are rather politically charged. Allow me to introduce some less charged words that capture the issues under debate.

Presently we have an uncontrolled (or under-controlled) and an unregulated (or under-regulated) immigration situation.

The concerns about this are great. We have individuals crossing the border and we have no information on them whatsoever. While the great majority of them are likely honest people seeking a better life to provide for their families, a significant portion (20 percent, perhaps) are law-breakers seeking to run drugs and engage in other criminal activities.

Leaving aside the lawless for a moment, let's look at the 80 percent good people. Under the present circumstances, they are in the United States without proper documentation and are thus subject to exploitation by businesses that wish to pay them less than minimum wage and/or work them in adverse conditions. While not quite slaves in the classic sense, they are certainly modern-day serfs.

There are exceptional benefits to be realized by the labour pool that Mexico can offer to the United States. But these benefits -- both to our nation and to the individuals participating -- are greatly diminished in our present under-controlled and under-regulated immigration system.

If I was made Southern Border Immigration Tsar I would take the following steps:

• Establish a migrant worker program that allows Mexican nationals to quickly and easily obtain a one-year (renewable) work visa at ports of entry.
• Require all undocumented workers inside the United States to obtain a similar one-year (renewable) work visa.
• Effect a zero-tolerance policy on illegal border crossings and individuals in the United States without the proper visa or with expired visas.
• Punish business that hire and exploit undocumented workers.

In short, eliminate the incentive to cross the border illegally (with easy to obtain visas) and choke the bad businesses that prey on these workers. Then I would focus on shutting down the drug traffickers and cross-border criminals.