It may be a small point, but if you're driving around, it's pretty certain you do have identification. It would be unfortunate if you did not have a driver's license.
The question, though, is whether you should need identification if you're just walking down the street, or sitting in your house, or a passenger in someone else's car. We Americans are accustomed to the idea that you don't. And part of what is being discussed here is what may happen if you don't, and whether that situation is changing. I can pretty well guarantee that if I were stopped while walking down the street with no ID, I almost certainly would not be stopped, and if stopped, not hassled, and if hassled, certainly not deported. Of course, I'm pretty conspicuously not a minority person.
And of course, most of the time in most places the same is true of people who are more conspicuously minorities, and glad we are of that. What a terrible and unliveable place this would be if that were not the case. XJX388 believes it's alarmist, or even false, to note the small but significant way the freedom we take for granted is being eroded by fear, prejudicial profiling, and xenophobia, while maintaining that if it did turn out to be true, he'd be ready to leave the country. I think that would be a great shame. I'd like to think he's right in dismissing news of the changing trends, but I rather suspect denial, and if he's wrong, late detection is too late.
When my wife became a citizen one of the first and best liberties she enjoyed was that of never having to show papers to anyone. It's a point of some pride that she never takes ID anywhere if she's not driving. We Americans don't have to. I'd like to see that continue. It's one of the good things about the United States, and we'd hate to see it go.
