Border Patrol criminally citing immigrants for not carrying their papers under decades-old law

Border Patrol agents in Southern California are increasingly handing out criminal citations to immigrants living in the country lawfully simply for not having their immigration papers on them, an inewsource investigation found. 

Using a sporadically enforced law adopted in the 1950s when post-war Americans were suspicious of immigrants, the federal agents have cited just over 45 people in the first five months of this year – almost twice as many as all of last year.

The trend is accelerating in California as the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda hammers immigrant communities across the country with increased policing and scrutiny. 

Green-card holders, guest workers and international students – all living in the U.S. lawfully – make up the vast majority of those who’ve been cited. In at least a handful of cases from this year, agents detained people for several hours before citing and releasing them. Most citations were issued at immigration checkpoints in the state’s southeastern region. 

At times, agents cited people on top of arrests for other offenses, such as smuggling. But the majority of citations appear to be given when the only violation is not having one’s papers, according to inewsource’s review of probable cause statements for each citation. 

The law, Section 1304(e) of Title 8 of the U.S. Code, requires an adult noncitizen to “carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card.” Failure to do so is a misdemeanor, carrying a penalty of up to 30 days in prison, a $5,000 fine or both, though most citations are resolved with a fine up to $130. 

Though relatively few citations under the law have been issued over the years, there’s some indication that it could be more widely and aggressively enforced soon. 

On President Donald Trump’s second day back in office, the Department of Justice issued a memo directing U.S. attorneys to pursue criminal prosecutions for violations of Section 1304, among other immigration laws. Federal prosecutors have filed seven such cases since January 20 in Washington, New Mexico, Texas and Alabama. Compare that to 10 cases in 2024 and zero in the nine years before that. 

Records show Border Patrol referred for prosecution at least one case – from May – to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California. The office didn’t answer questions about its plans to pursue that case or any others it might receive. The White House also didn’t answer requests for comment.

Critics argue the law is outdated, saying the renewed enforcement raises legal questions and will lead to wrongful arrests of U.S. citizens. And while some agencies in California are silent on the practice, one Border Patrol Sector has been outspoken about the citations. 

Gregory Bovino, chief patrol agent of the El Centro Sector, has championed the citations as part of his tough-on-crime approach where even minor offenses are met with punishment. His agents have accounted for at least two-thirds of all citations for failing to carry immigration papers issued across California this year.

In other instances, Bovino’s enforcement has brought legal challenges to the sector. The chief has been named in recent lawsuits brought by civil rights attorneys alleging agents violated the U.S. Constitution in immigration sweeps. In both suits, federal judges have ordered limits on their operations, CalMatters reported. 

Bovino’s agents have issued the criminal citations for a range of offenses. “Consequences are consequences,” he told inewsource in February. “Criminals don’t like consequences.”

Citations accelerating in 2025

Border Patrol agents across the country have issued citations under Section 1304 off and on for almost two decades, but sparingly so. 

Agents in the San Diego Sector were the first to issue citations in California, starting in 2020. That year, those agents issued nearly 60 citations – the most in any year – for failure to carry immigration papers. 

The numbers have since dropped off, but are on the rise again. Already in the first five months of 2025, agents in both sectors have issued 46 tickets – or an average of 9 tickets per month, compared to two a month last year. 

Over the years, agents issued most citations at immigration checkpoints near the Salton Sea, including along Highway 111 and Highway 86, and Interstate 8 near Pine Valley. But they’ve also issued a number of citations after pulling drivers over or stopping people on the street within largely Latino communities, including Calexico, Brawley and Indio.

Only 15% of citations issued so far this year appear to have been part of a more serious incident. In two cases, agents arrested people for overstaying their visa, and ticketed them for not having their papers on top of that. In other cases, agents cited people who they also accused of having drugs, including one man with more than 100 pounds of cannabis and another person with a small amount of fentanyl.

A handful of people over the years showed agents photos of their documents or other forms of ID, including state driver’s licenses or passports, according to probable cause statements. 

A green-card holder from China was cited at a checkpoint near Niland, a small town about 45 miles from the border, after showing a photo of his green card. In September, agents ticketed a couple, one green-card holder from Brazil and her partner from Spain. Both showed their passports and state IDs. Both were cited. 

Some people told agents they didn’t know they had to carry their papers with them. Others said they lost them or kept them at home because they were afraid to lose them. The current cost to replace a green card is up to $465.

El Centro Border Patrol officials say enforcing the carry requirement through citations is a practical matter. David Kim, assistant chief patrol agent, said they often encounter people without their documents and must confirm their status. 

“It would take time away from the agent having to bring the person in, sometimes even run their fingerprints to verify what they were saying is true and get all their documents because they weren’t carrying the document on them,” Kim said.

That wasn’t always the case, though. Agents cited people in a range of circumstances, sometimes after hourslong detentions but also after quickly confirming someone’s status in the field. 

In one case from March, an agent cited and released someone within 20 minutes. In another case from March, agents approached a “suspicious” green-card holder in an alleyway in Calexico and detained him at the station for nearly two hours – after they already confirmed his documents in the field.

inewsource asked Kim whether agents are strategically ticketing anyone in violation of the carrying law, or whether it’s only happening in some cases. He did not answer those questions, but said that Border Patrol agents “encourage all lawfully admitted aliens to carry their required documents at all times as the law requires.” 

“Just like being in possession of a driver’s license when operating a vehicle, the concept is the same,” he said, adding, “Failure to carry alien registration documents is a violation and subjects the alien not in compliance with the law to penalties irrespective of their legal status.”

But one legal expert, Jonathan Weinberg, a law professor at Wayne State University in Michigan, questioned whether the enforcement is aligned with the spirit of the law.

Weinberg said it’s not clear whether showing a photo of one’s documents or producing the documents themselves from the internet using a cell phone would or would not meet the law’s requirements. 

“If someone were contesting one of these tickets, I would be delighted to go before a magistrate (judge) and say, ‘Jesus Christ, he’s plainly lawfully present. He had the photo of his green card. What in the world did these guys want?’” Weinberg said. 

But the strict enforcement might just be the point, he added: 

“One can certainly see how it might be attractive to (the administration) to really impress on people that if you’re a noncitizen, you’re a suspect, you’re a potential deportee and you need to carry your papers.” 

Other critics say that the burden of enforcement could also fall on U.S. citizens, who are not required by law to carry ID, but could be mistaken for a noncitizen who is required to carry papers. 

Hiroshi Motomura, who co-directs the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA, said the citations add up to a picture of increased surveillance and policing, especially of border communities.

“This has a tremendous effect on the whole society, not just noncitizens,” Motomura said. 

Reviving seldom enforced laws 

The law requiring immigrants to carry their documents was adopted in 1952 after World War II when U.S. leaders were sounding the alarm about communism and tying immigrants to the threat. 

And it’s not the only decades-old law the Trump administration has revived in its immigration crackdown today.

In February, not long after the Justice Department issued its directive to prosecutors to bring charges for the carry requirement, officials under the Department of Homeland Security announced they would require immigrants living in the country unlawfully to register with the federal government, citing a law from the 1940s. 

Legal experts have noted that the U.S. hasn’t provided a practical way for immigrants in the country unlawfully to register until recently. On April 11, Homeland Security launched an online registration form. Within days, federal prosecutions began, the Washington Post reported. 

A Post review of court records also found that, in at least six criminal cases challenged by the defendants, judges either tossed or prosecutors withdrew the charges. In some cases, the judges noted that the defendants didn’t have time to know about or comply with the law.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, which covers San Diego and Imperial counties, declined to answer questions from inewsource, including whether it will file charges in the case referred by the Border Patrol in May. 

In that case, agents in plainclothes and driving unmarked vehicles questioned a woman during a traffic stop in El Centro. At first, she claimed she was born in Los Angeles and later, after agents ran a records check, admitted she was not a U.S. citizen but a green-card holder. 

The agent arrested her for falsely claiming U.S. citizenship and not having her green card with her, according to the probable cause statement.

Customs and Border Protection in the San Diego Sector, where agents have issued eight citations this year and dozens more in the past, did not respond to specific questions about the ticketing practice. 

But other Border Patrol sectors appear to be adopting the citations practice. In Arizona, Border Patrol agents started issuing citations in January for the first time on record. Since then through May, they’ve issued 24 citations for failure to carry papers. 

That pace is second only to the El Centro Sector. 

inewsource intern Teal Davis contributed to this report.