Do Eighteen Year Olds Have To Register For The Draft

Men who don't register for the draft by age 26 oftentimes have problems afterwards in life with federal and state benefits
More than one million men take requested a formal confirmation of their draft status since 1993
The most mutual consequences for declining 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 denizen and legal resident is required to annals for Selective Service, either by filling out a postcard-size class or going online.

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

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

Men under 26 tin go those benefits by taking advantage of what has effectively become an eight-twelvemonth grace menstruation, signing upward for Selective Service on the spot.

After that, an entreatment tin can be plush and fourth dimension-consuming. Selective Service statistics suggest that more than than i million men have been denied some authorities benefit because they weren't registered for the typhoon.

With the electric current male person-only draft requirement declared unconstitutional, Congress will accept to decide whether to eliminate Selective Service registration or expand information technology to women.

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

Unable to decide that question for decades, Congress created the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service in 2016. Information technology'south studying the future of the draft with a report due adjacent year.

Among the issues it's examining: Should draft registration be mandatory? If so, what's fairest manner to enforce it? Should the aforementioned consequences that have followed men for nearly four decades also apply 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.

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

Men who have been caught in the over-26 trap say the system is anything but.

Since 1993, more than 1 meg American men have requested a formal copy of their draft status from the Selective Service Organization, according to data obtained past U.s. TODAY under the Liberty of Information Act. Those status-data messages are the first step in trying to appeal the deprival of benefits, and are the best indication of how many men have been impacted past legal consequences of failing to register.

More:Should women be required to register for the armed forces draft?

On newspaper, it's a criminal offence to "knowingly fail or neglect or turn down" to register for the typhoon. The penalisation is up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Final twelvemonth, Selective Service referred 112,051 names and addresses of suspected violators to the Justice Section for possible prosecution.

Yet, only 20 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 Afghanistan. Just 14 were convicted. The terminal indictment, in 1986, was dismissed earlier information technology went to trial.

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

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

Federal pupil assist is the well-nigh common problem for men who haven't registered for the draft, according Selective Service data obtained by USA TODAY.

40 states and the District of Columbia link Selective Service to a commuter'due south license. But some of those allow men to opt out of registration, and almost a quarter of Americans in their early 20s don't take a driver's license.

Thirty-one states have legislation mirroring federal laws on student assist and employment, applying those bans to country-funded educatee aid programs and state employment.

Some states go even farther:

► In eight states, men are non allowed men to register at a state college or academy – even without financial aid – if they aren't registered for Selective Service. Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Due south Dakota and Tennessee.

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

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

As a consequence, registration rates vary from 100 percent in New Hampshire to 63 percent in N Dakota – and just 51 percentage in the District of Columbia, co-ordinate to Selective Service data.

"Information technology's very uneven across the land," said Shawn Skelly, a former Navy commander and member of the xi-member commission studying the draft.

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

Like the Vietnam War typhoon 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 afterwards in life – and to need student help when they do become to school.

In comments to the national service commission, critics of the policy called that policy "uncommonly cruel."

'Information technology was an honest mistake'

Brandon Prudhomme works on a yard in Beaumont, Texas.

Depending on how you lot await at it, Brandon Prudhomme either had a very good or very bad reason for declining to register for the typhoon: He was in prison for virtually of the time between the ages of xviii and 25.

His arrest record includes attack, drug possession and resisting abort.

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

But now he'southward 39 and trying to turn his life around. While living in a homeless shelter, he started his ain landscaping company "with 2 rakes and iv lawn bags," he said.

He'd like to go back to school for business. But since Prudhomme didn't register for Selective Service, he tin't go student loans. "The financial assistance people chosen me and said, 'Sir, do yo know annihilation about Selective Service?' I said no. They said my awarding had been carmine-flagged," he said.

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

The law has too snagged federal information engineering science workers, Forest Service firefighters, Veterans Administration doctors and even 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 plant out considering Henry told them, repeatedly, start in 2001. But in 2011, the IRS changed the rules to make Selective Service a requirement. He was over 26, so he couldn't annals.

So he sued, and lost in 2017.

"If they're going to enforce this law, you should know well-nigh the law and you should know about the consequences," said Henry'south lawyer, Rachel L.T. Rodriguez. "The problem here is, you don't know the consequences that follow you forever like this."

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

"If there were no penalties for declining to annals, the rates would plummet, and fairness and equity would go out the window," said Matthew Tittman, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, a civilian agency that administers draft registration.

Men who are over 26 and denied benefits can appeal the determination if they can prove that their failure to register was non "knowing and willful."

It's unclear how many men succeed. The Office of Personnel Direction says it got 160 requests for waivers in the last financial year. The Section of Pedagogy would not release data or hash out its process on the record.

And proving that someone didn't intentionally evade the draft tin exist costly and time consuming, taking as long equally xviii months to decide.

Marc J. Smith, a Rockville, Maryland, federal employment lawyer who handles such cases, says the process can cost $3,500 to $4,000 in legal fees.

An appeal can involve researching when and where the Selective Service sent reminder letters, and gathering sworn statements from parents, childhood friends and schoolhouse 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 because there was an administrative procedure to handle those claims.

Fifty-fifty if Congress eliminates the draft, Smith said, information technology's unclear whether those old penalties volition become abroad.

"People will still have this upshot," he said. "And I guess that means a much larger pool of potential clients for me."