What Happens If I Forgot To Register For Selective Service

Men who don't annals for the typhoon by age 26 frequently have problems subsequently in life with federal and state benefits
More than 1 million men have requested a formal confirmation of their draft status since 1993
The nearly common consequences for failing to register are a loss of student aid, citizenship, and federal employment

For 39 years, it'due south 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'south less well known is what happens on a human being's 26th altogether.

Men who fail to register for the draft by then can no longer practice so – forever closing the door to government benefits like student aid, a government chore or even U.S. citizenship.

Men nether 26 can become those benefits by taking advantage of what has finer become an viii-twelvemonth grace period, signing up for Selective Service on the spot.

After that, an appeal can be plush and time-consuming. Selective Service statistics suggest that more than ane meg men accept been denied some government benefit because they weren't registered for the typhoon.

With the current male-but draft requirement alleged unconstitutional, Congress will have to decide whether to eliminate Selective Service registration or aggrandize 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 hereafter of the draft with a study due next year.

Among the issues it's examining: Should typhoon registration exist mandatory? If so, what's fairest way to enforce information technology? Should the aforementioned consequences that have followed men for almost 4 decades as well 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 former assistant secretary of the Army. "And that means looking at whether the current system is both off-white and equitable – only likewise transparent."

Men who have been defenseless in the over-26 trap say the system is annihilation but.

Since 1993, more than 1 meg American men have requested a formal copy of their draft status from the Selective Service Arrangement, according to data obtained by Us TODAY under the Freedom of Information Human action. Those status-data letters are the showtime step in trying to appeal the denial of benefits, and are the best indication of how many men accept been impacted by legal consequences of failing to register.

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

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

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

All the same, simply 20 men have been criminally charged with refusing to register for the typhoon since President Jimmy Carter reinstated it in 1980 in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Only 14 were convicted. The last indictment, in 1986, was dismissed before information technology went to trial.

So at present the arrangement relies largely on voluntary compliance, a patchwork of state laws, and the gamble of losing federal benefits.

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

Federal student assistance is the nigh mutual problem for men who haven't registered for the typhoon, according Selective Service data obtained by United states of america TODAY.

40 states and the District of Columbia link Selective Service to a driver's license. But some of those let men to opt out of registration, and most a quarter of Americans in their early 20s don't have a driver's license.

Thirty-1 states take legislation mirroring federal laws on student assist and employment, applying those bans to land-funded student assistance programs and state employment.

Some states go even further:

► In eight states, men are not immune men to annals at a state higher or academy – even without financial assistance – if they aren't registered for Selective Service. Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, New Hampshire, South 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 neglect to register for the typhoon can't receive an almanac dividend from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which gave Alaska residents $ane,600 from state oil revenue in 2018.

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

"It's very uneven across the country," said Shawn Skelly, a former Navy commander and fellow member of the 11-fellow member committee studying the draft.

"How people register is predominately passively. About men who register, register though secondary means when they apply for student aid or get a driver's license. There isn't a real deliberate didactics of people nearly 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-form Americans. They're more than probable to put off college until later in life – and to need student aid when they do become to school.

In comments to the national service commission, critics of the policy called that policy "exceptionally savage."

'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 practiced or very bad reason for failing to register for the draft: He was in prison for most of the fourth dimension betwixt the ages of eighteen and 25.

His arrest record includes assail, drug possession and resisting arrest.

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

Simply at present he's 39 and trying to turn his life effectually. While living in a homeless shelter, he started his own landscaping company "with 2 rakes and four lawn bags," he said.

He'd like to get back to school for business concern. Merely since Prudhomme didn't register for Selective Service, he can't get student loans. "The financial assistance people called me and said, 'Sir, do yo know anything well-nigh Selective Service?' I said no. They said my application had been red-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 police force has likewise snagged federal information technology workers, Forest Service firefighters, Veterans Administration doctors and fifty-fifty federal contractors.

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

And so he sued, and lost in 2017.

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

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

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

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

Information technology'due south unclear how many men succeed. The Office of Personnel Management says it got 160 requests for waivers in the last fiscal year. The Department of Education would non release data or discuss its process on the record.

And proving that someone didn't intentionally evade the draft can exist costly and time consuming, taking as long equally 18 months to decide.

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

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

The cases rarely brand information technology to court. The Supreme Courtroom ruled in 2012 that the courts didn't have jurisdiction over federal employment cases because in that location was an administrative process to handle those claims.

Even if Congress eliminates the typhoon, Smith said, it'due south unclear whether those old penalties volition get away.

"People will all the same have this issue," he said. "And I guess that means a much larger pool of potential clients for me."