FYI: The first immigrant group asked to "carry papers" were Chinese Americans

"In 1892, with a presidential election fast approaching, Democratic Congressman Thomas Geary of Sonoma County, California, had seized on anti-Chinese sentiment and wrote an identification bill that easily passed the House of Representatives, 178-43, and the Senate, 30-15. The Geary Act gave a Chinese laborer one year to register for a certificate or face immediate deportation. The identity card was to contain two duplicate photographs that were "securely affixed to the papers by strong adhesive paste...."


"The identification cards had their roots in slavery. Before the Civil War, enslaved blacks had often been forced to carry identifying passes when they left their plantations, and free blacks were required to bear papers proving that they were not slaves..."

"Thousands honored the call to disobey the "Dog Tag Law" and they faced immediate deportation. Their refusal to carry an identity card, American's first internal passport, created perhaps the largest organized act of civil disobedience in the United States."

Taken from: Pfaelzer, Jean, Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans, University of California Press, 2008
pp.291-292