Your papers, please

"Your papers, please" (or "Papers, please") is an expression or trope associated with police state functionaries demanding identification from citizens during random stops or at checkpoints. It is a cultural metaphor for life in a police state.

The phrase was popularized as the first line in the classic 1942 movie Casablanca which depicted life in Vichy-controlled Casablanca during World War II. The film opens with a scene of police officers searching a hotel for refugees fleeing from Nazi-controlled territory. The first line of the film is spoken by a police officer to a civilian he stopped on the street: "May we see your papers, please?" The civilian produces a document, but a second police officer declares that it "expired three weeks ago" and begins to tell the civilian he is under arrest. The civilian attempts to flee the police but a gunshot is heard and the civilian falls to the ground.

Use in the United Kingdom

In 2009, the Conservative Party leader David Cameron used the trope with a German accent whilst criticising the idea of ID cards in the United Kingdom by asking a Q&A session "Where are your papers?".

Use in the United States

The phrase has been used disparagingly in the debate over Real ID and national ID cards in the United States.

It has also been used to refer to interactions with citizens during police stops and immigration enforcement. Arizona's controversial SB 1070 law requiring people to carry identification was dubbed the "Papers, Please" law.

The phrase has also been used by the press in relation to a February 2017 incident in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents searching for a suspect demanded identification from passengers exiting a domestic flight. In January 2018, bus passengers allege that Border Patrol agents boarded a Greyhound bus in Florida and demanded U.S. identification or a passport from all of those on board.

A lawsuit against Glendale, Arizona police officers alleges that a passenger in a car was tasered on the genitals after he asked an officer why he needed to identify himself during a 2017 traffic stop.

A report from Big Brother Watch, a London-based nongovernmental privacy advocacy group say police use of facial recognition technology in public spaces is like people being "asked for their papers without their consent".

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the phrase was used to refer to vaccine mandate policies enacted in places like New York City.

See also

• Stop-and-frisk in New York City
• Stop and identify statutes
• Terry stop

References