Leo Garcia Venegas had a problem. He is a citizen of the United States of America. He is also a Latino working in construction. The Constitution says he has a right to be left alone. He also has no obligation to prove his citizenship, as Americans are under no duty to carry proof that they are Americans. ICE isn’t particularly concerned about such matters.

An Alabama construction worker is challenging the Trump administration’s warrantless construction site raids after he says he was arrested and detained by federal immigration agents—twice—despite being a U.S. citizen with a valid ID in his pocket.

In a federal civil rights lawsuit filed today in the Southern District of Alabama, Leo Garcia Venegas is seeking to stop “dragnet raids” that target Latinos like himself, without any probable cause besides their ethnicity.

The dreaded Kavanaugh Stops caught Venegas. Not once, but twice. And American citizen Venegas was not willing to sacrifice his rights, his freedom from seizure, from being taken into custody, even if the MAGA faithful are happy to have him suffer for the sake of ridding the nation of “illegals.”

Venegas and the Institute for Justice argue that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policies allow immigration agents to illegally raid private construction sites, detain workers without reasonable suspicion, and continue detaining them even after they offer evidence of citizenship or legal status. All of this, they say, violates the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

“Armed and masked federal officers are raiding private construction sites in Alabama, detaining whoever they think looks undocumented, and ignoring proof of citizenship,” Jared McClain, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, said in the press release. “That’s unconstitutional, and this case seeks to bring that practice to an end.”

But, some (like Justice Kavanaugh) might respond, what’s the big deal about pulling out your identification to prove you aren’t an illegal, but an American citizen, entitled to all the rights pertaining thereto? Aside from the fact that the United States, unlike other countries of infamy, does not have a “show us your papers” requirement and most of us, at least when it comes to people whose last name doesn’t end in a vowel, would find such a demand intolerable if some masked thug demanded they prove their identity or risk a free night or 90 in Alligator Alcatraz, don’t most people have a drivers’ license? And don’t most people now have a license with a star, mandated and overseen by DHS as a REAL ID?

Only the government could spend 20 years creating a national ID that no one wanted and that apparently doesn’t even work as a national ID.

But that’s what the federal government has accomplished with the REAL ID, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now considers unreliable, even though getting one requires providing proof of citizenship or lawful status in the country.

In a December 11 court filing, Philip Lavoie, the acting assistant special agent in charge of DHS’ Mobile, Alabama, office, stated that, “REAL ID can be unreliable to confirm U.S. citizenship.”

Not that ICE had any authority asking, but Venegas had a REAL ID in his pocket, and it was shown to ICE when they conducted their random roundup of Hispanic-y looking fellows. Ironically, DHS ain’t buying it, even though it’s DHS’ ugly baby.

It’s the punch line to a bad joke with a 20-year windup. When Congress passed the REAL ID Act in 2005. It was sold as a post-9/11 security measure to create uniform standards for state IDs, including clearly listing citizenship or lawful immigration status. State IDs that conformed to the requirements would be marked with a star. Contrary to the cheeky first sentence of this story, DHS insists that REAL ID is not a national ID system, and that it doesn’t involve a centralized national database. (Civil liberties groups say it amounts to a de facto national ID system anyway.)

The rub was that REAL IDs would be required for entry to federal property, including, most significantly for the average American, airport security checkpoints. But the law was widely unpopular. There was such low compliance from states that enforcement was delayed seven times over the years, until finally beginning this May.

Obtaining a REAL ID is a huge burden, a very real pain in the butt, requiring all manner of proof of identity from birth certificate to lease or deed to electric bills. For many, these documents can be difficult to locate or nonexistent. Not every American has their name on the lease or utility bills. The only guarantee is that it will require at least two trips to the DMV before you have all the papers required and available to show a clerk who would rather be elsewhere.

The Institute for Justice, representing Venegas, isn’t taking DHS’ disclaimer of its own highly unpopular yet pointless REAL ID for granted.

In a court filing in response to DHS, the Institute for Justice noted how incredible this position is. “REAL IDs require proof of citizenship or lawful status,” the Institute for Justice wrote. “DHS is the very agency responsible for certifying that REAL IDs, including Alabama’s STAR IDs, satisfy this requirement.”

The law firm argues that DHS’ policy of allowing officers to disregard proof of lawful presence likely violates the Fourth Amendment and DHS’ own regulations.

It’s “bad enough” that American citizens, in conflict with their constitutional right to be left alone, are compelled to prove their identity at all. But when the very proof of identification forced down American’s throats by the very agency that refuses to accept them as proof of citizenship, it becomes intolerable. Except, perhaps to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, if that really is his name.

When asked to comment on Lavoie’s declaration, a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to Reason: “The INA requires aliens and non-citizens in the US to carry immigration documents. Real IDs are not immigration documents—they make identification harder to forge, thwarting criminals and terrorists.”

But of course, Venegas is a U.S. citizen, so he is not required to carry non-existent immigration documents.

Of course. The conundrum was obvious from the outset, and the fact that ICE wants to mass deport the undocumented does not make it incumbent on Americans to prove their citizenship to masked thugs or suffer deportation. The burden is on the government to prove that a person is here unlawfully, not on the person to prove to the government that he has the right to be left alone.