My Identity returns!

by Leland P. Morrill Adopted Native American Citizenship Affected by The REAL ID Act of 2005 on Saturday, May 14, 2011 at 3:31am
Great news!
My plastic California state issued Identification plastic card came in the mail.

Left: my paper State issued Identification. Glad I don't have to carry that anymore because no-one accepts that for ID & then I have to continually explain it is State issued Identification.
Right: my plastic State issued Identification card.

A sense of completion and accomplishment. The ability to be part of reality returned. Every time I look at that card I understand freedom in a different way.

Isn't it amazing how every teenager and adult throughout the United States takes a plastic identification card for granted? Most will never know the value placed on that one card until they cannot have one by virtue of not having a birth certificate, proof of birth caused by one act, and anti-terrorism act called The Real ID Act of 2005.

Here is some review:
H.R. 418: REAL ID Act of 2005
1. TITLE II—IMPROVED SECURITY FOR DRIVERS’ LICENSES AND PERSONAL
IDENTIFICATION CARDS
Minimum document requirements:
The person’s date of birth.
Documentation showing the person’s date of birth

2. TEMPORARY DRIVERS’ LICENSES AND17 IDEll,NTIFICATION CARDS that expire one year after issuance.
"(i) IN GENERAL.—If a person presents evidence under any of clauses (v) through (ix) of subparagraph (B), the State may only issue a temporary driver’s license or temporary identification card to the person.
(ii) EXPIRATION DATE.—A temporary driver’s license or temporary identification card issued pursuant to this subparagraph shall be valid only during the period of time of the applicant’s authorized stay in the United States or, if there is no definite end to the period of authorized stay, a period of one year."

The last part of that gets me, an EXPIRATION DATE. Read that paragraph again:

(ii) EXPIRATION DATE.—A temporary driver’s license or temporary identification card issued pursuant to this subparagraph shall be valid only during the period of time of the applicant’s authorized stay in the United States or, if there is no definite end to the period of authorized stay, a period of one year."

Can you imagine going into your local State Department of Motor Vehicles and leaving knowing you only have one year to prove you exist? Realizing the Nation who adopted you out, the Judge in who signed off your adoption, your adopted parents all failed in their own part to document you enough with a Census Number, Certificate of Indian Blood and/or Birth Certificate/Affidavit. In this day and age it determines what you can do and where you can go. It limits your freedom.

Think about all the places you show your State issued Identification Card, or just count in your mind the times you've used it in the past week. What about that purchase at the store where you used a credit card? At the store when you purchased a bottle of wine? While in line to go dancing at a club? At dinner in a restaurant while paying and the waiter asks for identification? That's freedom that's taken away once you lose the ability to have a State issued Identification Card or Drivers License that most people take for granted.

Now think of it on a bigger scale. What if you need your Identification card for employment? Yes you have to prove your identification to work legally in this country. We live in a modern day Depression. If you became unemployed, what type of job can you do without identification? What desperate measures would you do to survive because you didn't have ID?

Here in Los Angeles, you can go into certain neighborhoods and people sell ID's to you. Think how tempting it would be if after one year you were unable to prove your legal status, your birth and you were forced to purchase Identification?

I'm so glad that my California Identification Card arrived. I feel alive again. I wiped out all my savings, my 401K, everything because of the research, paying for legal expenses. I stopped living life and enjoying it as much because there were only limited places, things I could do, I lost many freedoms because of not having that card. I also lost the ability to go to school but not the ability to learn.

I learned to write, hone my research skills, how to utilize the internet, verbalize where I am at in my quest to obtain a goal, how to get other people to understand my plight, where my focus is, and to ask for help. I learned to ask. I learned people are willing to help if you prepare them and can verbalize what you need them to do. I realized I understood verbalizing when my biological cousin Matthew came to visit, he asked me: What can I do? I didn't have an answer then because I hadn't prepared for that question. No one had asked me that. That question totally threw me off guard. Learn to understand when someone asks that question, they may want to hear you verbalize a task for them to do. They may not know how to help because your process is foreign to them. Learning to tell some one to help you and what you need is something that I learned at that moment and to realize I need to be prepared for that question.

Now that I have my Identification card, I'm able to focus on me. I get to move forward rather than being stuck in the desperate process of keeping my identity, knowing my identity has an expiration date.

My new focus is now to regain my financial stability, employment, the focus on entrepreneurship etc. Right now during this modern day Depression, I need to focus on me on moving past when someone pickpocked my wallet and my identity was put into question.
Thank you for reading!

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Leland P. Morrill