“Your papers, please” is the almost universal cultural sign that you’re in an authoritarian police state. The phrase originates in the classic movie Casablanca, set in a Nazi-controlled city during World War II. The very first line in the movie is a police officer asking a scared civilian, “May we see your papers, please?”, shortly followed by the civilian being summarily executed.
This scene is becoming reality in Minneapolis. As indicated in multiple videos posted to social media over the last few days, ICE agents are roaming the streets and detaining random people for what they describe as “citizen checks”, demanding proof that they are American citizens.
