lana del rey; "chemtrails over the country club" / jack gilbert; collected poems; "between aging and old" / wind breaker manga / erin lecount; "marble arch" / anne sexton; "lost lies" / dawn golden; "discoloration" / yusef komunyakaa; neon vernacular: new and selected poems; "the thorn merchant" / emily dickinson; from a letter to mrs. a.p strong, august 1851 / sasha alex sloan; "highlights" / albert camus; the myth of sisyphus / shytaupe; "it's myself"
ren kaji x hirgai!sister reader, wc: 5k, req? no.
note from sunnie: could be read as a standalone or as a continuation of this kaji fic. manga spoilers for the noroshi arc/kaji backstory. canon typical violence & descriptions of injuries/bruises (not reader)
“Can we talk about it?”
“No.”
“Ren.”
He doesn’t answer. Honestly, you didn’t think he would.
“I just…” You can’t finish your sentence. You know what you want to say, but you don’t think you could be that selfish. What’s happening is bigger than just you and Ren, but it doesn’t feel like it. Not at this moment, in his room.
Instead, you frown at Ren and hope he can read your mind.
Predictably, he ignores that, too.
He can’t ignore you forever, though, because you’re in his bed, laying pressed against him, and Ren has always been a sucker for you. He’s trying his best, though, and you give him credit for it. He hasn’t looked away from his phone once, even when you set your open palm over his heart while he lays on his back.
You feel his heartbeat, and it’s racing.
Curled into his side with your head settled on the junction of his shoulder and arm, you can see his phone screen perfectly. He has the Bofurin groupchat open, reading through the plans for the night for the umpteenth time.
Because tonight, Chika Takiishi and Yamato Endo are supposed to invade the town.
Your brother, Toma Hiragi, sends a text to Ren separately from the thread, and you watch him tap on the notification. He’s not trying to hide it from you—like he’d ever be able to—and you know this is his silent way of letting you in.
Toma’s text is about you, and you read it silently next to Ren. Something about making sure you know to stay far, far away from the fight happening in town. Another thing about making sure you understand just how dangerous this all is. Like you’d ever be able to forget.
“Tell him I’m staying the night here,” You murmur, voice quiet in the already tense atmosphere. He doesn’t respond, still trying to act like you aren’t staring a hole into the side of his head to get him to talk, but you watch as he types with one thumb a response to your brother, exactly what you said.
His other arm is wrapped around your body, holding you close.
“At least let me walk with you to the bridge,” You try to bargain, even if you truly know it’s futile. With your palm pressed over his heart, you at least need to try. “I’ll come back here right after, swear.”
“No.” He repeats his one syllable answer—the only word you’ve been able to drag out of him the last ten minutes. His denial is firm, so you drop it. For now.
Instead, you shuffle closer to him, like you could convince him with how close you are. His arm around you starts trailing up and down your side, his hands far gentle with you, now, then they will be with Endo’s men in just a few short hours.
You know you’ll have to patch him up later, and you know he’s doing it to protect the town—protect you—but your stomach sours at the thought regardless. Logic can’t win out when your Ren is the one on the line.
“I have to go soon.” His voice is a low murmur, rumbling his chest where your palm and cheek are pressed against him. You don’t want to acknowledge the fact that he’s right, because the moment he’s out of your sight you know you won’t be able to relax. It’s bad enough your brother already left for the flood plain an hour ago, dropping you off at Ren’s house on his way.
“Hm.” You hum, not moving despite knowing his words were a request for you to untangle yourself from him. You’re not ready to let him go—or to give up the argument. “Let me walk you halfway.”
There’s a moment of silence. You feel Ren’s fingers flex from where he’s holding you tightly.
“C’mere.” He sighs, and you feel the way his chest deflates with the movement. He doesn’t sound irritated, like you had thought he would with your incessant request to go against what both he and your brother want. But he does sound firm in his decision.
You push yourself up onto one elbow, hovering above Ren. He doesn’t let you keep the higher ground long, curling the hand that’d been holding his phone around the back of your neck to tug you down and close enough to kiss. You press your lips against his easily, using the hand on his chest to brace your weight above him.
He doesn’t kiss you long, especially with his phone buzzing as frequently as it is, but you don’t pull back far when you separate.
“Listen,” Ren isn’t looking away from you know, and you would shiver under the full weight of his stare if you weren’t wearing his sweatshirt and flushed from his affection. “The only way I’ll be able to fight with a clear head is if I know you’re safe.”
“You can’t expect me to sit on my ass the whole night.” You pout, brushing hair from his forehead and kissing the corner of his lips like you could convince him by overloading him with your touch. It’s worked before, but never with something this big.
“Not the whole night.” He runs the pad of his thumb across your cheekbone, touching you so softly it almost looks like he’s revering a deity. There’s a glint of something bright in his steely eyes and you can almost predict what he’s going to say before he opens his mouth. “Who else is gonna patch me up after?”
“Not funny,” You hum, leaning down to kiss him again. This is his way of letting you in, of including you in the part of his life—the fighting—that he’s terrified to let you see. But you don’t want to just sit around and wait for the call that he was hurt. Or worse. “Enomoto will kiss you better if you ask.”
“Shut up.” His thumb tugs across your bottom lip, like he’s reprimanding you for your words. As if he wasn’t the one who insisted on bringing up the fact he’s most likely going to get hurt. “Y’know I can’t let you come.”
“I know,” Sighing, you relax your weight and bury your face into the crook of his neck. You hear him huff, feel the way his lungs expand and compress with the movement, but you don’t risk getting up. Because if you do, you know he’s going to leave. “But you don’t have to put the image of you getting hurt in my mind right before you’re supposed to go.”
Ren doesn’t answer. Instead, he squeezes you once before flipping you over. He hovers above you briefly, and now that you’re the one laying flat on your back, he looks more sure of himself. This is where he wants you to be.
Safe, in his bed, waiting for him to come back.
And if he’s going to risk his safety for the town, the least you can do is give him this security.
“I love you,” You tell him, fingers carding through the hair on the back of his head. Ren sighs, kissing you once before forcing himself to stand tall. You curl up instantly in the absence of his warmth, and you know you’ll be restless until he returns. “Come back to me.”
“I love you, too.” Ren picks up his headphones from where he abandoned them on his nightstand the moment he climbed in the bed beside you an hour ago “And you know I will.”
You want to say I know, but he’s already halfway out of the room before the words start to reach your lips. So you let them go unsaid. And you let Ren go, too, so he can do what needs to be done.
But you were right. You don’t rest at all while he’s gone. Midnight comes and goes. You hear fireworks at the start, and check your phone as if hearing from Ren or Toma so soon would be a good thing.
And you wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Toma’s call comes in around three in the morning. You answer on the first ring, because you’ve been waiting in Ren’s bed for hours for some kind of notification.
Your brother is breathing heavily through the line, but he doesn’t sound panicked, like Bofurin lost and the town is about to be destroyed. No, you know that hasn’t happened because Ren didn’t come to protect you.
“Come to the school. I’m sending Matsumoto to come pick you up.”
Your stomach drops. Because if Matsumoto is the one coming to get you—where’s Ren?
“Can you c’mere a sec? And bring bandages!”
That’s how you really meet Ren Kaji for the first time.
You’re young, in your final year of elementary school. Quieter than you’ll grow up to be, but you still have your sharp tongue. Your brother—and his best friends Matsumoto and Yanagida, by extension—are your primary victims.
“Stop telling me what to do!” You call back, but you’re padding into Toma’s bedroom one day after school regardless. “What do you need—oh.”
You pause, because it’s not the usual trio in your brother’s room. Toma is there with Matsumoto and Yanagida, obviously, but there’s someone new, too.
Someone you recognize.
“Kaji’s here?” You question pointlessly, because you see who’s sitting in the corner of Toma’s bedroom. You can’t say you’ve ever actually had a conversation with him, but you’d be surprised if anyone in your grade doesn’t know who Ren Kaji is. He has a reputation, but not the most flattering one.
And now he’s in your brother’s room, curled in on himself.
“You know him?” Toma asks. Kaji lifts his head from where he’s hiding in the hood of his sweatshirt, and you see the fresh bruises and cuts that mark his face.
“We were in the same class last year.” You half-heartedly explain, coming into the bedroom fully and shutting the door behind you. Despite your initial attitude, you had brought the first aid kit your brother mentioned. Just because you were going to give him hell for ordering you around doesn’t mean you weren’t going to get what he needed.
“Oh, yeah.” Kaji finally speaks, voice far quieter than you’d assume from him. You’ve heard the whispers around school, how he flies off the handle at every insult and snaps at everyone.
You think that might be bullshit, because the Ren Kaji sitting before you looks entirely too pathetic for such a reputation.
“I’m assuming these are for you.” You direct your comment to Kaji, settling down on your knees beside him. With the amount of times Toma, Matsumoto, and Yanagida have come home from fights at school, you know the contents of the first aid kit like the back of your hand. You don’t like them fighting so often, but you know they’re standing up to bullies.
You know, because they’ve stood up to your bullies.
“Don’t.” Kaji snaps at you the moment you get close enough to reach for his hands. The skin on his knuckles is split open, and though bandages won’t stick there, you could at least clean it. But he doesn’t let you touch him, jerking away and burrowing his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. You see him actively shrink away from you, and you know you need to rethink your approach. “I can do it myself.”
“Yeah,” You shrug one shoulder causally. You make sure to move slower, after his reaction, but you still pull out the bandages and antiseptic wipes. More carefully; not touching him yet. It’s entirely obvious that something has happened that made him so skittish. And if the rumors swirling around school are even close to the truth, you get it. Get him. “I bet you could. But you’re hurt, and I want to do it.”
You sound so sure of yourself, like there never really was another option.
“Besides, Kaji, it’s not like you’re going to hurt me, or anything.”
“You don’t know—” Kaji snaps, but you don’t even let him finish before you’re holding up a palm to silence him. Honestly, if his lip wasn’t busted, you probably would have pressed your hand over his mouth to shut him up.
“Idiot,” You huff, rolling your eyes and barrelling on before he has the chance to get offended. You don’t care that you have an audience of three, because you know your brother called you in here to help Kaji for a reason. Toma knows where the first aid kit is, with all the fights he gets into. “It’s not that I think you’re some righteous guy that would never lay a finger on a girl. I’m not stupid. I barely know you.”
Though, it’s not like you’ve ever been one to believe your classmates when they talk about how feral Kaji is. You watched him doodle stars in his notebooks too often last year when you were classmates to think he’s a horrible person.
“I know you won’t hurt me,” You give him a flat look, making sure he understands that you’re not lying and you won’t take any of his shit. “Because Toma would have you laid out flat before you even got the chance to touch me.”
Kaji pauses, then looks from you to your brother.
“That’s true,” Toma nods, conceding to your point with his arms crossed and the faintest hint of a smug grin on his face.
“Now,” You focus your attention back on Kaji. He’s looking at you again, closely, and you can’t help but think that he seems a little pathetic and a whole lot desperate for human connection. “Hold still.”
Miraculously, he does.
Kaji lets you clean his cuts and bandage him up without complaint. He doesn’t say anything at all, actually, and neither do you. Matsumoto doesn’t know how to stop talking—never has, honestly—and you’re applying Kaji’s last bandage when your brother’s best friend opens his big mouth.
“Ha! Look at how fast you tamed him.”
“Shut up—” Kaji starts to snarl, but your stern words interrupt his attack when you turn and glare at Matsumoto.
“He’s not an animal.” You hiss, delicate fingers not once pausing their gentle press on the bandage’s adhesive. “He doesn’t need to be tamed.”
You feel Kaji’s stare on the side of your face, but you don’t look away from Matsumoto. It doesn’t matter that he’s your senior, or that he’s practically another brother with how often he comes over to your house. You don’t like what he said about Kaji, and you want it known.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean it like that.” The older boy murmurs, and Yanagida gives you a silent nod at the fact that you somehow managed to make Matsumoto quiet. Toma snorts a laugh, but you ignore him in favor of turning back to Kaji. You’re still frowning, but the look on his face is far more…
Open.
He doesn’t thank you. Not that you thought he would, but you see his gratefulness in the way he doesn’t protest against you doting on him. He watches you closely, but there’s no crease between furrowed brows. Instead, he’s simply looking, like he might solve some problem in his mind by tracking the way you chew on the inside of your cheek in focus.
You meet his eye, once, and you swear you see something like hope alive there.
Kaji doesn’t look away from you very often after that.
“Why are you soaked?”
You find Toma first, standing outside the door to the second year class A homeroom, and that’s the first thing you can think to ask. He’s drenched, head to toe, and scratches mar his face.
Matsumoto opens his mouth to explain, but Toma sends him a look sharp enough to get him to shut it. Which, that’s worrying, because your brother is hiding something and he doesn’t keep things from you.
“Nevermind me, I’m fine.” He’s not, but you’ll let Toma lie for now. It’s three in the morning, and you were called to the school for a reason. “Kaji got it bad.”
Your blood turns to ice in your veins, and you almost trip. But instead of freezing, you speed up, and throw yourself into the classroom despite your brother trying to slow you down to talk to you.
Which is bullshit if he thinks you’re going to listen to him when he just told you that.
There’s a decent amount of Ren’s classmates in the room. They’re all in rough shape, all in various stages of bandaging themselves and each other up. But you couldn’t care less about them right now, honestly.
You see Enomoto first, because he’s being loud. Kusumi is beside him, flailing his arms around, pointing to his phone and clearly trying to communicate something. You know your best bet at finding Ren is with them, and your hunch is proven correct when you get close and you see your boyfriend slouched in a desk chair and looking far worse than anyone else.
Bruises litter his face, and though you know he’s already made an effort to clean most of the blood away, red flakes in scattered places. His forehead looks the worst, and you think you might need to take him to the clinic.
“Ren,” You’re breathless when you call out to him, and if you had been able to pay attention to anyone but your boyfriend, you would have seen the way Kusumi and Enomoto deflated in relief at your arrival. But you only see Ren, who stiffens at the sound of your voice, as if on edge.
“I told you not to call her.” Ren’s voice is low, quiet. But he’s not glaring at anyone, though you think that might be because he can’t meet the eye of anyone in the room.
“Shut up.” You snap. It feels like there’s a vice around your throat, constricting your breathing. This is like one of your worst case scenarios—and Ren doesn’t even want you there. Not that you’ll listen to him. Most of your relationship is you reading between the lines, knowing that despite what he says, he’s entirely soft for you and secretly wants affection, always.
“I’m fine.” Ren lies. He’s not good at it, and especially never to you. But you know his wounds go beyond physical, since you’ve been patching him up since elementary school. This reaction isn’t normal. “Go home.”
“Bullshit.” Frowning, you cross your arms tightly over your chest. You’re still wearing his hoodie, but suddenly it doesn’t feel warm enough. There’s so many eyes watching your conversation with Ren, your brother and majority of the second years included, and you know Ren won’t be honest with you with such a large audience. You risk looking away from Ren long enough to meet Toma’s eye, knowing he can command the room easily. “Can we have the room?”
“Kusumi, walk her back—” Ren starts, still not looking at you.
It’s really starting to piss you off.
“No.” You cut him off, because if he finishes that thought you think you’ll lose your mind. In no way will you let Ren send you off like that, when he’s in such a state—physically and mentally.
Toma listens to you, because he’s always known best how to act around Ren when he gets into one of his moods. Well—best after you.
While the room clears out, you busy yourself by snagging the first aid kit Enomoto had been trying to use to help Ren before you arrived. You drag a chair in front of your boyfriend’s seat, and just as Toma’s filing out of the room, leaving you alone with Ren, he tells you that he’ll see you in the morning.
You want to reach out to Ren, to press your fingers or lips or maybe both to any inch of uninjured skin. You’d struggle to find any, but after worrying about him for hours you don’t care. You just need him, need to prove to yourself that he’s safe and with you, where he belongs, again.
But there’s still a wall Ren’s keeping up between the two of you.
“You shouldn’t be here.” He opens the conversation first by trying to shut it down immediately. Your pout deepens, somehow, and you ignore his unsaid command for you to leave. He doesn’t mean it, and you know him better than that.
“Toma called me.” You reply instead, telling him without so many words that you held true to your promise, that you stayed inside and safe until you were called. It had been his one request, and you honored it despite the fact that it felt like you were going to pull out your hair in stress the whole night. “Toma told me to come, and had Matsumoto pick me up at your house.”
Your hands shake as you open a fresh antiseptic wipe, and you don’t know how to make them stop. It’s probably only serving to freak him out, more, truthfully.
“I don’t need your help.”
“I don’t think I asked.” It’s hard to hide the tears burning your eyes now. And you know Ren can see them, hear them in your words, because his gaze finally finds your own for the first time since you arrived. “Requetsed or not, I’m here. Don’t shut me out.”
It’s silent after that. The moment doesn’t even have its usual soundtrack of rock music from Ren’s headphones. They’re discarded on the desk nearby, and you’re surprised he hasn’t reached to tug them on and block out the rest of the world with them yet.
So it’s not completely over, yet. He’s giving you an in.
“Fine.” He sighs, more defeated than you’d like him to be.
But you leave it be, for the moment. He has too many bruises, too many cuts, for you to think about pushing him to talk just yet. For your own sanity, in order to even out your own breathing, you need to take care of him.
So, you patch him up in silence.
“We should go to the clinic in the morning,” You murmur. You do your best to clean him up, but you can’t help but worry about him. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him this bad—not even his first year, when that massive fight happened right after he was named grade captain.
“Hm,” Ren hums, but he doesn’t look at you. His fingers are tapping an anxious pattern on the tops of his knees, and as you press one final bandage over his cheek you grab his hands in yours. You’re careful about the split skin on his knuckles, but you needed to feel him.
“What happened on that bridge?” You ask, voice quiet enough that you can still hear the voices of other Bofurin members in the hallway. They’re not eavesdropping, just passing through, so you ignore them. Your heart drops when Ren shakes his head, not telling. It’s been a while since he’s closed down on you. You almost don’t remember how to navigate this. Almost. “You scared me. Ren, please don’t shut me out.”
You shift, sliding out of the chair and kneeling onto the ground, forcing him to look at you by moving into his line of sight. You want to hold his face, but he’s so broken from the fight you don’t want to risk causing more pain.
Even if that hurts you.
“I don’t deserve you.” You almost don’t hear him, he’s so quiet. But your attention has been focused on him for years, so it’s impossible to miss anything he says.
“Stop talking like that.” Your words sound more broken than angry, and you have to squeeze your eyes shut to keep from crying. He sees it, because you hear the shuddering breath he releases. “It’s me, Ren. You can tell me anything. I just want to understand why you’d say that, after everything.”
He pulls out of your hands, and you panic for only a moment before he sets his palms on your cheeks, cradling your face. He’s gentle, reverent, and you know it’s been hours since he’s done anything gentle with his hands.
You let him adjust to holding you. He tries to pull you up, pull you into his lap, but you know better. If his face looks that bad, then you know he’s hurting everywhere. He’s strong, but you can’t handle knowing that you’d be causing him pain on fresh bruises.
Instead, you silently compromise and sit on the desk beside him, and he slots himself between your knees and wraps his arms around your waist. He rests his cheek against your leg, so close his face is almost pressed against your stomach. You trust him to find a position that doesn’t hurt his injuries.
You trust him.
“I… lost myself. Again.” He says once he settles, the words a vibration pressed against you. Instantly, you know what it means. That side of him he tries so hard to hide, to fight against. The anger that’s led to him wearing headphones to block out the world and carrying lollipops to choke down his temper.
The beast.
“So?” You try not to ruin the atmosphere, keeping your voice quiet, but you’re practically desperate for him to understand how little that bothers you. You’ve known Ren for far too long to judge him for something he actively works to fix. “I’ve seen it before.”
“We weren’t…” He cuts himself off, not finishing his sentence. Instead, he presses his face harder against your leg. You frown, because there’s no way that doesn’t hurt.
“Weren’t, what?” Your hands find their way to his hair, gently carding through. He’s due for another dye job, but that might have to wait, because you feel bruises on his scalp, too. You think your heart snaps in two.
“Together.” Ren finishes his thought, and you know something in your chest caves in. You pick up on the implication of his words immediately, but he continues anyway. “We weren’t together. It was before you loved me.”
“Shut up.” Your words have no bite. He doesn’t need any more harshness. Not tonight. You keep your touch gentle in his hair, where any other night you might’ve tugged on the strands to brattily reprimand him for thinking so little of you. “You think I didn’t love you, even back then?”
“What?” Ren’s voice sounds neutral, but you’ve been caught in his orbit for so damn long you hear the hope clinging to his words. He tilts his head up, propping his chin against the top of your leg so he could look at you while keeping his body close.
“I think I’ve always loved you. Even if it wasn’t romantic at the start. I care about you too much for that not to all be love.” You’re not lying. Not about this, and never to him. Ren Kaji is far too important of a person to you to ever consider hurting. “I love you because of the way you are, not despite parts of you.”
“I wasn’t strong enough.” He responds, voice weak. It’s impossible to not see the way his eyes shine with tears unshed. He believes you, but he believes himself, too. And you know you can’t fix that tonight, his unending well of self doubt, but you can start. “Kusumi and Enomoto, all my other friends, got hurt because I wasn’t enough. And they know how to defend themselves. What if you had been there?”
And, you think, that’s the real problem.
Ren’s worried about the what ifs. The endless situations that could have happened if you were there. If you were caught in Noroshi’s fire, and unable to defend yourself. You’re not a fighter; Toma and Ren have fought for you for your whole life, you’ve never needed to be one.
But you know he’s also thinking about if you would have been caught in his path.
He’s told you before, how when he slips up and lets that well of anger take hold of him, that he almost blacks out. He hates it, how he loses control and hurts everyone around him.
Which, if you were there—would include you.
“But I wasn’t.” You remind him, the hand that’s not brushing his hair from his face settling over his cheek with the utmost care. Your thumb brushes across his lips, like you could coax his worries out with your touch alone. “You can’t worry about what could’ve happened. Think about what you have. And what you have, is me.”
Maybe you’re putting too much weight on the value of you.
Ren doesn’t think so. Between one heartbeat and the next, he’s pushing himself to stand between your knees while you’re perched on the desk. One of his hands finds a home on the side of your neck, thumb tucked just under your jaw to angle your head the way he wants it while the other settles against your cheekbone. And then he’s kissing you as if he thought he’d never get the chance to again.
You’re careful with him, always, but you find yourself gripping the front of his hoodie to pull him close. He smells of sweat and fear and tastes like blood and peach. It’s an awful combination but it’s him, so you think you’ll spend the rest of your life longing for it.
“I love you.” He breathes into your open mouth, face pressed so close to yours that you can feel his bandages brush your skin. You hate that he’s hurt but so, so glad that he’s back with you.
“I love you, too.” You repeat, pulling back far enough so you can look at him properly. He’s still hurting, but you think he will be for a while. All you can do is hold him, and that’s not a job you’d ever pass on. “Even when you make me mad. Especially then, I think.”
“I’m sorry.” Ren admits, leaning forward to press his weight against you, arms going around your middle as if he hadn’t demanded Kusumi take you home as soon as you arrived.
“You better be.” You mean your words as a tease but you don’t have the energy, so it comes out more defeated sounding than you’d like. You press closer to Ren, and try not to think about all the ways tonight could’ve gone much, much worse. “Can we go, now?”
Im gonna be so real can yall actually talk about ways we can support trans women in the UK instead of giving all the attention to fucking JKR. I already know that Harry Poter sucks, I wanna know how to actually HELP people. Something something you have to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor
doubly funny that I saw a compilation of all the corporate accounts like "aw thanks elmo, we're doing well" meanwhile all the flesh and blood real human people are extremely not okay
No, you should definitely keep calling it a kill switch. It helps describe my feelings on the matter.
I would also accept ai throttle. Not because I want to use levels of activity between fully on and fully off, but because I want to throttle the ai with my bare hands.
TIL that the reason lead levels in children’s blood have dropped 85% in the past thirty years is because of an unknown scientist who fought car companies to end leaded gasoline. He also removed it from paint, suggested its removal from pipes, and campaigned for the removal of lead solder from cans.
Yep. It also correlates extremely strongly with an increasing decrease of violent crime. One of the symptoms of low level constant lead exposure is increased aggression and volatility.
Petition to make his date of death a Tumblr holiday celebrated by talking about cool shit the gas and petroleum industries don’t want us to know about, and fighting to continue his work.
Happy Clair Cameron Patterson Day! Remember to hold Big Business and our country’s leadership for safety regulation and environmental preservation standards!
Hey, people in the US! Did you know that the Department of Homeland Security is trying to implement mandatory biometrics and fingerprinting for all foreign travelers entering and exiting the US?
And that there’s a public comment period OPEN RIGHT NOW? It only has 18 comments. Let’s get this circulating!! Public comment period ends on 11/26/25. If enacted, it would go into effect 12/26/25.
I hope I don’t need to explain why this is a problem, especially in our current administration. But a few key reasons why this is a very bad idea and sets a very bad precedent:
- privacy and security. HIPPA and other privacy laws exist to protect the unnecessary collection of data so that it’s less likely to be leaked. Is this data going to be stored securely? Who will have access to it? For what purpose? What safeguards will be in place to protect the proper use of this data? Surely there could be no reason to collect personally identifiable information about “foreigners” and “aliens”. Surely this wouldn’t be used for mass deportation efforts.
- the public comment is aimed at “the specific collection process as well as costs and benefits” for the process. So in your comment, the most effective arguments will center around how this system is infeasible to implement, cost prohibitive, and has no benefit. Focus on how the collection process will cost a lot of money, infringe on rights to privacy, etc.
Others please feel free to add ideas or template messages!!
