Don't Carry Your U.S. Passport; This is Safer - Expert

WASHINGTON - Nov. 18, 2025 - PRLog -- Many citizens who think they might be vulnerable to a sweep by immigration enforcement agents [IEAs] are reportedly carrying their U.S. passports with them at all times because an easily-carried driver's license doesn't prove citizenship.

But a passport is too big to fit into a wallet, may easily be overlooked and forgotten when changing clothing, and can too readily get lost or damaged if carried in a pocket.

To avoid the very serious problems, such as lengthy detention, which might occur if you lose or forget your passport, Banzhaf suggests that you store an image of it on your cellphone.

Better yet, he says, would be to also store an image of your passport on your smart watch.

One way to store an image of your passport on both your iphone and Apple watch would be to use the WATCH app for iphones which recently made it easy to do with its "Digital ID" system; just follow the simple instructions.

An alternative would be to take a picture of your passport with the cellphone's built-in camera, and then store it as a "Favorite" so that it can be easily and quickly located without having to scan through all the photos which were saved.

This photo method has the additional advantage of permitting you to also easily photograph and store, on both your iphone and Apple watch, an image of your Global Entry card and REAL ID driver's license; both of which will also have your photograph.

This photo method of storing a Global Entry card and/or driver's license may also be used by students and others who are not U.S. citizens because they can help to prove to a skeptical IEA that the holder is lawfully in the U.S. and not a fugitive, suggests Banzhaf.

Too many people have been seized and detained by IEAs, often for extensive periods of time and under distressing conditions, because they could not quickly and easily prove that they were U.S. citizens or lawful residents.

Being prepared to offer such proof by storing images of passports, Global Entry, and/or REAL ID driver's license cards, on both cellphones and smart watches, is a great way to help avoid clearly foreseeable problems.

It also costs nothing and can be done in minutes, which is why the professor urges all students, and others who might believe they are vulnerable, to take these simple no-cost steps to protect themselves.

http://banzhaf.net/ jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com @profbanzhaf