…#Registration laws were originally intended as an inventory of noncitizens in the country, Morawetz said. But once govt officials obtained that info, they used it to aid the #detention of #Japanese Americans during WWII & #Muslims after the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“Registration laws have a very, very bad history in terms of what they have meant when they have been fully enforced,” she said.

…The new program could lead to a “nationwide show-me-your-papers regime” that could ensnare US #citizens & legal immigrants, Greg Chen, senior director of government relations for the American #Immigration Lawyers Association, warned in an interview. Anyone who “appears foreign” could be harassed, he said.

The registration plan faces several significant obstacles. Immigrants may be *reluctant* to register after watching the #Trump admin order federal officers into US cities & towns to #detain people or send them to #Guantánamo…. And lawyers & legal scholars say the admin’s proposal is on shaky #legal ground & could quickly destabilize communities & an #economy w/millions of unfilled jobs.

#DHS Secy #KristiNoem [& dog serial killer], who announced the plan Tues, argued that the #Trump admin should know who is here illegally so that it can #deport them or give them the chance to leave voluntarily. She has warned immigrants in recent days that they “will be #hunted down & deported” if they fail to register & has cited a provision of the 1952 Immigration & Nationality Act as justification for the requirement.