Was There A Time When You Didn't Have To Register For The Draft?

Men who don't register for the draft past age 26 frequently take problems later in life with federal and country benefits
More 1 million men have requested a formal confirmation of their draft status since 1993
The most common consequences for declining to annals 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 person denizen and legal resident is required to annals for Selective Service, either by filling out a postcard-size course or going online.

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

Men who fail to register for the draft past then can no longer exercise so – forever endmost the door to regime benefits like student help, a authorities job or even U.S. citizenship.

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

Afterward that, an appeal tin can exist plush and fourth dimension-consuming. Selective Service statistics suggest that more than than one million men have been denied some government benefit because they weren't registered for the draft.

With the electric current male-simply draft requirement declared unconstitutional, Congress volition have to determine whether to eliminate Selective Service registration or expand information technology to women.

Celebrated ruling:With women in gainsay roles, a federal court declares male person-simply draft unconstitutional

Unable to determine that question for decades, Congress created the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service in 2016. It's studying the hereafter of the draft with a report due next year.

Amid the issues information technology's examining: Should draft registration be mandatory? If so, what's fairest style to enforce it? Should the same consequences that take 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.

"We're taking a wait at all of these questions," says Vice Chairwoman Debra Wada, a one-time assistant secretary of the Army. "And that means looking at whether the current system is both off-white and equitable – simply besides transparent."

Men who have been caught in the over-26 trap say the arrangement is anything only.

Since 1993, more than i million American men accept requested a formal copy of their typhoon status from the Selective Service Arrangement, according to data obtained by USA TODAY under the Liberty of Information Deed. Those condition-information letters are the first stride in trying to appeal the denial of benefits, and are the all-time indication of how many men accept been impacted by legal consequences of failing to register.

More:Should women be required to annals for the military draft?

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

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

Still, simply 20 men accept 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 Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. But fourteen were convicted. The concluding indictment, in 1986, was dismissed before information technology went to trial.

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

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

Federal student assist is the most common problem for men who haven't registered for the draft, co-ordinate Selective Service data obtained by U.s. TODAY.

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

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

Some states get fifty-fifty further:

► In viii states, men are not immune men to register at a state college or university – even without financial aid – 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 alive in the land but don't register for Selective Service must pay out-of-state tuition rates.

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

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

"It'due south very uneven across the country," said Shawn Skelly, a former 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 educatee aid or get a driver's license. There isn't a real deliberate education of people about the law."

Like the Vietnam State of war draft that helped fuel the social upheaval of the 1960s and '70s, today'due south draft registration requirement puts a disproportionate burden on lower-class Americans. They're more likely to put off higher until later in life – and to need student aid when they practice go to schoolhouse.

In comments to the national service commission, critics of the policy chosen that policy "exceptionally cruel."

'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 adept or very bad reason for failing to register for the typhoon: He was in prison for most of the time between the ages of 18 and 25.

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

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

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

He'd like to get back to school for business concern. But since Prudhomme didn't register for Selective Service, he can't get student loans. "The financial assistance people chosen me and said, 'Sir, do yo know anything about 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 law has besides snagged federal it workers, Forest Service firefighters, Veterans Assistants doctors and even 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 constitute 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 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."

But officials say that for typhoon registration to work, the law has to accept teeth.

"If there were no penalties for failing to register, 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 entreatment the decision if they can show that their failure to annals was non "knowing and willful."

Information technology'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 Education would not release data or hash out its process on the record.

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

Marc J. Smith, a Rockville, Maryland, federal employment lawyer who handles such cases, says the process can cost $3,500 to $four,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 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 because there was an administrative process to handle those claims.

Fifty-fifty if Congress eliminates the typhoon, Smith said, information technology'due south unclear whether those erstwhile penalties will become away.

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