Do Men Still Have To Register For Selective Service

Men who don't annals for the draft by age 26 often accept problems later in life with federal and country benefits
More than than ane million men take requested a formal confirmation of their typhoon condition since 1993
The most common consequences for failing to register are a loss of student aid, citizenship, and federal employment

For 39 years, it's been a rite of passage for American men. Within 30 days of his 18th birthday, every male citizen and legal resident is required to register for Selective Service, either by filling out a postcard-size form or going online.

What'southward less well known is what happens on a homo's 26th birthday.

Men who fail to annals for the draft by then can no longer do so – forever closing the door to regime benefits like educatee aid, a regime task or even U.Southward. citizenship.

Men under 26 tin get those benefits by taking advantage of what has effectively become an viii-year grace menstruum, signing upwards for Selective Service on the spot.

After that, an appeal tin can be costly and time-consuming. Selective Service statistics suggest that more than ane million men have been denied some government do good because they weren't registered for the draft.

With the current male person-only draft requirement declared unconstitutional, Congress will have to make up one's mind whether to eliminate Selective Service registration or expand it to women.

Historic ruling:With women in gainsay roles, a federal courtroom declares male-only draft unconstitutional

Unable to decide that question for decades, Congress created the National Commission on Armed forces, National and Public Service in 2016. It's studying the future of the draft with a report due next yr.

Amid the issues it's examining: Should draft registration be mandatory? If and so, what's fairest fashion to enforce it? Should the same consequences that have followed men for nearly iv decades besides utilize to women?

Brandon Prudhomme works on a yard in Beaumont, Texas March 27. Prudhomme, who works as a landscaper and dishwasher, can't get student loans to go back to school because he didn't register for Selective Service before he turned 26.

"We're taking a look at all of these questions," says Vice Chairwoman Debra Wada, a former assistant secretary of the Army. "And that ways looking at whether the current system is both fair and equitable – but also transparent."

Men who have been caught in the over-26 trap say the organization is anything merely.

Since 1993, more than 1 million American men have requested a formal copy of their draft status from the Selective Service System, co-ordinate to data obtained past USA TODAY under the Liberty of Information Human activity. Those status-information letters are the kickoff pace in trying to appeal the denial of benefits, and are the best indication of how many men have been impacted by legal consequences of failing to register.

More:Should women be required to register for the war machine typhoon?

On paper, it's a crime to "knowingly fail or neglect or refuse" to register for the draft. The penalty is up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Last year, Selective Service referred 112,051 names and addresses of suspected violators to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.

Nevertheless, but xx men have been criminally charged with refusing to register for the draft since President Jimmy Carter reinstated it in 1980 in response to the Soviet invasion of Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. Only fourteen were convicted. The last indictment, in 1986, was dismissed earlier it went to trial.

And so at present the system relies largely on voluntary compliance, a patchwork of state laws, and the risk of losing federal benefits.

Congress passed two provisions to tighten enforcement in the 1980s. The Solomon amendment in 1982 made Selective Service registration a requirement for federal pupil aid. The Thurmond Amendment in 1985 did the same for federal employment.

Federal student aid is the nigh common problem for men who haven't registered for the draft, according Selective Service data obtained by U.s.a. TODAY.

Forty states and the Commune of Columbia link Selective Service to a commuter's license. But some of those let men to opt out of registration, and virtually a quarter of Americans in their early 20s don't take a driver'south license.

Xxx-one states take legislation mirroring federal laws on educatee help and employment, applying those bans to country-funded student aid programs and state employment.

Some states go even further:

► In viii states, men are not allowed men to annals at a state college or university – fifty-fifty without financial assist – if they aren't registered for Selective Service. Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, New Hampshire, S Dakota and Tennessee.

► In Ohio, men who live in the state just don't register for Selective Service must pay out-of-state tuition rates.

► In Alaska, men who fail to register for the draft tin can't receive an annual dividend from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which gave Alaska residents $1,600 from country oil acquirement in 2018.

As a result, registration rates vary from 100 percent in New Hampshire to 63 percentage in Northward Dakota – and only 51 percent in the Commune of Columbia, according to Selective Service data.

"It's very uneven across the land," said Shawn Skelly, a one-time Navy commander and member of the 11-member commission studying the draft.

"How people register is predominately passively. Most men who register, register though secondary means when they apply for student help or get a driver'southward license. There isn't a real deliberate didactics of people almost the law."

Like the Vietnam War draft that helped fuel the social upheaval of the 1960s and '70s, today's draft registration requirement puts a disproportionate burden on lower-class Americans. They're more likely to put off college until after in life – and to need student help when they do get to school.

In comments to the national service committee, critics of the policy called that policy "exceptionally brutal."

'It was an honest mistake'

Brandon Prudhomme works on a yard in Beaumont, Texas.

Depending on how you look at it, Brandon Prudhomme either had a very good or very bad reason for failing to annals for the draft: He was in prison house for near of the fourth dimension between the ages of 18 and 25.

His arrest tape includes assault, drug possession and resisting abort.

"It was an honest mistake," he said. "I was on my own since I was 14 years old. I got involved in gang-blazon stuff."

But now he's 39 and trying to turn his life effectually. While living in a homeless shelter, he started his own landscaping visitor "with two rakes and four lawn bags," he said.

He'd like to go dorsum to schoolhouse for concern. But since Prudhomme didn't register for Selective Service, he can't become student loans. "The financial help people called me and said, 'Sir, do yo know anything virtually Selective Service?' I said no. They said my awarding had been red-flagged," he said.

"If it was mandatory, how was there not the opportunity for me to sign those papers?" Prudhomme asked. "He said that was my responsibility."

The police force has as well snagged federal data technology workers, Forest Service firefighters, Veterans Administration doctors and fifty-fifty federal contractors.

Richard Henry, a contractor for the Internal Revenue Service, lost his access to IRS facilities because he failed to register for Selective Service. They found out because Henry told them, repeatedly, beginning in 2001. But in 2011, the IRS changed the rules to make Selective Service a requirement. He was over 26, so he couldn't register.

So he sued, and lost in 2017.

"If they're going to enforce this law, you should know about the law and you should know about the consequences," said Henry'southward lawyer, Rachel Fifty.T. Rodriguez. "The problem here is, y'all don't know the consequences that follow you forever similar this."

Only officials say that for draft registration to work, the law has to have teeth.

"If there were no penalties for failing to annals, the rates would collapse, and fairness and disinterestedness would go out the window," said Matthew Tittman, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, a noncombatant bureau that administers typhoon registration.

Men who are over 26 and denied benefits can appeal the decision if they tin prove that their failure to annals was not "knowing and willful."

It'southward unclear how many men succeed. The Office of Personnel Management says it got 160 requests for waivers in the concluding fiscal year. The Section of Pedagogy would not release data or discuss its process on the record.

And proving that someone didn't intentionally evade the draft can exist plush and time consuming, taking as long every bit 18 months to make up one's mind.

Marc J. Smith, a Rockville, Maryland, federal employment lawyer who handles such cases, says the process tin toll $iii,500 to $four,000 in legal fees.

An appeal tin can involve researching when and where the Selective Service sent reminder letters, and gathering sworn statements from parents, childhood friends and school officials.

The cases rarely make it to court. The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the courts didn't have jurisdiction over federal employment cases considering there was an administrative process to handle those claims.

Even if Congress eliminates the typhoon, Smith said, it'southward unclear whether those old penalties will become away.

"People will withal accept this issue," he said. "And I estimate that means a much larger pool of potential clients for me."