People of a certain age will remember the old black-and-white movies, The Twilight Zone, and countless Cold War-era dramas set in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. In scene after chilling scene, people in uniform approach random pedestrians and bark, “Papers, please.”

Those who hesitate—who don’t have their documentation in order, who look “out of place,” or simply fail to comply fast enough—are dragged away. Vanished. Disappeared into the gulag or the prison camps, never to be seen again.

It was always framed as national security. Public order. Protecting the homeland. But what it really was, in both Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR, was authoritarianism dressed up as bureaucracy.

This combination of surveillance, identification, and coercion has always been the hallmark of authoritarian regimes, and Trump’s is no different.

Republicans in the House have passed legislation requiring people to bring their passports to register to vote; increasingly Americans with brown skin are today carrying their citizenship papers, birth certificates, and even passports out of fear of a chance encounter with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Because it’s already started here: On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued a directive requiring all noncitizens in the U.S.—including those on visas and green card holders—to carry proof of their legal status at all times. Failure to comply will result in imprisonment.

This policy, part of Trump’s executive order titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” has sparked fears among civil rights groups that it could lead to racial profiling and wrongful detentions of U.S. citizens who may be unable to immediately prove their status.

As recently happened to Jose Hermosillo, who was held in a detention facility for undocumented immigrants for 10 days after simply asking an officer for directions.

It’s as if the Trump regime is taking a cue from those old movies, like they were templates for America’s future. After all, if you want to control a civilian population this is tried and true.

The Soviet Union’s internal passport system, introduced in 1932, became the backbone of state control over citizens. Those domestic passports—containing personal information and required for anyone over 16—weren’t just identification but permission slips for existence itself. Without the proper stamps and approvals, citizens couldn’t access employment, housing, education, or even food rations. The system created a population dependent on state approval for their most basic needs.

During crackdowns like those following the 1968 Prague Spring, these identification systems became weapons allowing authorities to swiftly target, detain, and “disappear” political opponents under the guise of administrative violations. The message was clear: Your papers aren’t just documentation; they’re the difference between freedom and vanishing into the system.

Another poignant example of this oppressive system was the “Green Ticket Roundup” on May 14, 1941, in Paris. Immigrant Jews received summonses from the Nazi-collaborating Vichy government printed on green paper, instructing them to report for a “status check.” Upon arrival, over 3,700 individuals were arrested and deported to death camps, marking one of the first mass arrests of Jews in France during World War II .

A regime of fear, enforced by ID checks and compliance demands, that began with targeting outsiders—immigrants, ethnic minorities, refugees—and then, inevitably, turned inward toward its own citizens: starting with marginalized groups, political dissenters, even the merely inconvenient.

Today, in the United States, we are witnessing the early stages of this same playbook.

Donald Trump recently attacked the U.S. Supreme Court for temporarily blocking his administration’s attempt to summarily deport migrants without due process. He raged, “We cannot give everyone a trial,” signaling his belief that constitutional protections shouldn’t apply to undocumented people, or perhaps to anyone he deems unworthy.

This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. It was a direct statement of naked authoritarianism.

Across the country, stories are piling up of ICE arrests and detentions with no transparency, no due process, and no answers. A mother from Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, was suddenly

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