What Is The Penalty For Failing To Register With The Selective Service System

Men who don't register for the draft by age 26 often have issues later in life with federal and state benefits
More than ane million men have requested a formal confirmation of their draft condition since 1993
The most mutual consequences for declining to annals are a loss of student help, citizenship, and federal employment

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

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

Men who fail to annals for the typhoon by so can no longer do so – forever closing the door to government benefits like student aid, a authorities job or even U.South. citizenship.

Men under 26 can get those benefits by taking reward of what has effectively become an eight-year grace period, signing up for Selective Service on the spot.

Later on that, an appeal can be plush and time-consuming. Selective Service statistics propose that more than 1 1000000 men have been denied some government benefit because they weren't registered for the draft.

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

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

Unable to make up one's mind that question for decades, Congress created the National Committee on Military, National and Public Service in 2016. It'southward studying the future of the draft with a report due side by side twelvemonth.

Among the issues it's examining: Should typhoon registration be mandatory? If so, what's fairest way to enforce information technology? Should the same 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.

"We're taking a look at all of these questions," says Vice Chairwoman Debra Wada, a former assistant secretarial assistant of the Ground forces. "And that means looking at whether the current organisation is both fair and equitable – simply too transparent."

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

Since 1993, more than ane million American men have requested a formal copy of their draft condition from the Selective Service Arrangement, according to data obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Data Act. Those status-data messages are the first footstep in trying to entreatment the deprival of benefits, and are the all-time indication of how many men have been impacted by legal consequences of declining to annals.

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

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

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

Yet, but xx men have been criminally charged with refusing to register for the draft since President Jimmy Carter reinstated information technology in 1980 in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Only 14 were bedevilled. The last indictment, in 1986, was dismissed before it went to trial.

So now the system relies largely on voluntary compliance, a patchwork of state laws, and the run a risk of losing federal benefits.

Congress passed 2 provisions to tighten enforcement in the 1980s. The Solomon amendment in 1982 made Selective Service registration a requirement for federal student aid. The Thurmond Amendment in 1985 did the same for federal employment.

Federal student help is the near mutual problem for men who haven't registered for the typhoon, according Selective Service data obtained by United states of america 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 nearly a quarter of Americans in their early 20s don't have a driver'southward license.

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

Some states get even further:

► In eight states, men are non allowed men to register at a land higher or university – even without fiscal 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 live in the state but don't annals for Selective Service must pay out-of-state tuition rates.

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

Every bit a event, registration rates vary from 100 percent in New Hampshire to 63 percent in N Dakota – and just 51 percentage in the District of Columbia, according to Selective Service information.

"It'southward very uneven across the land," said Shawn Skelly, a erstwhile Navy commander and member of the xi-member commission studying the draft.

"How people annals is predominately passively. Most men who register, annals though secondary means when they utilise for pupil aid or become a commuter'south license. There isn't a real deliberate education of people near the law."

Like the Vietnam State of war draft that helped fuel the social upheaval of the 1960s and '70s, today's draft registration requirement puts a disproportionate burden on lower-course Americans. They're more likely to put off college until later in life – and to demand student assist when they do become to school.

In comments to the national service committee, 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 await at it, Brandon Prudhomme either had a very skilful or very bad reason for failing to register for the draft: He was in prison house for most of the time between the ages of eighteen and 25.

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

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

But at present he'south 39 and trying to turn his life around. While living in a homeless shelter, he started his ain landscaping company "with two rakes and four lawn bags," he said.

He'd like to get dorsum to school for business. Merely since Prudhomme didn't register for Selective Service, he tin't get student loans. "The financial aid people chosen me and said, 'Sir, practise yo know anything about Selective Service?' I said no. They said my application had been ruby-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 also snagged federal information technology workers, Forest Service firefighters, Veterans Assistants doctors and even federal contractors.

Richard Henry, a contractor for the Internal Acquirement Service, lost his access to IRS facilities considering he failed to register for Selective Service. They plant out considering Henry told them, repeatedly, start in 2001. Merely in 2011, the IRS changed the rules to brand 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 nearly the law and you lot should know nigh the consequences," said Henry's lawyer, Rachel 50.T. Rodriguez. "The problem hither is, you don't know the consequences that follow you forever like this."

Only officials say that for draft registration to piece of work, the police force 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 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 not "knowing and willful."

Information technology'due south unclear how many men succeed. The Role of Personnel Management says information technology got 160 requests for waivers in the last financial year. The Department of Education would not release data or discuss its procedure on the record.

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

Marc J. Smith, a Rockville, Maryland, federal employment lawyer who handles such cases, says the procedure 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, babyhood friends and school officials.

The cases rarely arrive to court. The Supreme Courtroom ruled in 2012 that the courts didn't have jurisdiction over federal employment cases considering in that location was an administrative procedure to handle those claims.

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

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