Papers please: Trump employs proof of identity tactic to monitor Americans
Story by Sareen Habeshian, Axios, 5/19/25
The Trump administration has instated all sorts of requirements to monitor Americans, particularly immigrants in its first months.
The big picture: From an undocumented immigrant registry to proof-of-citizenship for voting, President Trump has attempted to create a landscape in which the government can demand to know — and force people to prove — their identity in radical new ways.
Between the lines: The data the administration is pushing for can be weaponized against people.
Immigration
As part of its immigration crackdown, the administration instated a plan to require undocumented immigrants to register with the federal government — and a judge gave a stamp of approval.
- It requires undocumented immigrants age 14 or older to provide their fingerprints or face a fine or even imprisonment.
- The Department of Homeland Security launched an app that officials say will allow immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally to report when they “self-deport.”
- Targets of the administration’s immigration crackdown also include U.S. tourists and permanent residents from around the world, who have been arrested, detained and deported at ports of entry.
- Social Security is now an immigration enforcement tool.
- The Internal Revenue Service reached an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to share the tax information of undocumented immigrants with immigration authorities.
Education
As part of the Trump administration’s playbook to influence and reorient the priorities of universities, school protest leaders have been targets.
- Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protests, was arrested without a warrant and has remained in ICE custody.
- Free-speech advocates see it as a chilling escalation of Trump’s immigration crackdown and as a First Amendment issue. The White House argues his actions — helping to lead campus protests against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians run afoul of the president’s order banning antisemitism.
Meanwhile, as the government probes schools over alleged antisemitism, employees at Barnard College received a survey from a federal regulator asking if they were Jewish and whether they practiced Judaism.
- That was characterized to be part of a federal investigation into whether the university discriminated against Jewish employees.
- “That the government is putting together lists of Jews, ostensibly as part of a campaign to fight antisemitism, is really chilling,” Nara Milanich, a Barnard history professor who is Jewish, told AP. “As a historian, I have to say it feels a little uncomfortable.”
Voting
Trump signed an executive order last month to make sweeping changes to federal elections, including a proof of citizenship requirement. A federal judge blocked that requirement last week.
- The House, meanwhile, passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, requiring voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote. SAVE aims to restrict noncitizen voting in federal elections — which is exceptionally rare and illegal.
Health
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced he’s launching a disease registry to track Americans with autism.
- The National Institutes of Health is collecting private medical records from both federal and commercial databases.