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 problems later in life with federal and state benefits
More than 1 million men take requested a formal confirmation of their typhoon status since 1993
The most common consequences for declining to annals are a loss of student help, citizenship, and federal employment

For 39 years, it's been a rite of passage for American men. Inside thirty days of his 18th altogether, 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'due south 26th birthday.

Men who fail to register for the draft past then can no longer do so – forever closing the door to authorities benefits like educatee aid, a authorities job or even U.S. citizenship.

Men under 26 tin become those benefits by taking advantage of what has effectively become an viii-yr grace period, signing upwards for Selective Service on the spot.

Later that, an entreatment tin exist costly and time-consuming. Selective Service statistics propose that more than 1 million men have been denied some government benefit considering they weren't registered for the draft.

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

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

Unable to decide that question for decades, Congress created the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service in 2016. Information technology's studying the futurity of the draft with a report due next twelvemonth.

Amongst the issues information technology'due south examining: Should typhoon registration exist mandatory? If so, what'southward fairest way to enforce it? Should the same consequences that accept 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 secretary of the Army. "And that means looking at whether the current system is both fair and equitable – just also transparent."

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

Since 1993, more than 1 one thousand thousand American men have requested a formal copy of their typhoon status from the Selective Service System, co-ordinate to data obtained by Usa TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act. Those status-information letters are the kickoff step in trying to appeal the denial of benefits, and are the best indication of how many men have been impacted past legal consequences of failing to annals.

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

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

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

Still, only 20 men take 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 convicted. The concluding indictment, in 1986, was dismissed earlier it went to trial.

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

Congress passed 2 provisions to tighten enforcement in the 1980s. The Solomon amendment 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 aid is the nigh mutual problem for men who oasis't registered for the draft, according Selective Service data obtained by United states TODAY.

Xl states and the Commune of Columbia link Selective Service to a commuter's license. But some of those allow men to opt out of registration, and about a quarter of Americans in their early 20s don't have a driver's license.

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

Some states become even further:

► In eight states, men are not allowed men to annals at a state college or university – even without financial assist – 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 register for Selective Service must pay out-of-country tuition rates.

► In Alaska, men who fail to annals for the typhoon tin't receive an almanac dividend from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which gave Alaska residents $i,600 from land oil acquirement in 2018.

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

"It's very uneven across the land," said Shawn Skelly, a quondam Navy commander and member of the eleven-member committee studying the typhoon.

"How people register is predominately passively. Nearly men who annals, register though secondary means when they apply for student aid or get a driver's license. At that place isn't a real deliberate educational activity of people most the law."

Like the Vietnam War draft 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 than likely to put off higher until after in life – and to need student aid when they do go to school.

In comments to the national service committee, critics of the policy called that policy "exceptionally vicious."

'It was an honest mistake'

Brandon Prudhomme works on a yard in Beaumont, Texas.

Depending on how you look at information technology, Brandon Prudhomme either had a very good or very bad reason for failing to register for the draft: He was in prison for near 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 own since I was 14 years erstwhile. I got involved in gang-type stuff."

But now he'southward 39 and trying to turn his life effectually. While living in a homeless shelter, he started his own landscaping visitor "with two rakes and four lawn bags," he said.

He'd like to get back to schoolhouse for business. Merely since Prudhomme didn't register for Selective Service, he can't get pupil loans. "The fiscal help people called me and said, 'Sir, do yo know anything well-nigh Selective Service?' I said no. They said my awarding had been red-flagged," he said.

"If it was mandatory, how was there non 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, Woods Service firefighters, Veterans Administration doctors and even federal contractors.

Richard Henry, a contractor for the Internal Revenue Service, lost his access to IRS facilities considering 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, then he couldn't annals.

And then he sued, and lost in 2017.

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

Only officials say that for draft registration to work, the law has to take teeth.

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

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

It's unclear how many men succeed. The Office of Personnel Direction says information technology got 160 requests for waivers in the concluding fiscal 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 tin can be costly and time consuming, taking as long every bit 18 months to make up one's mind.

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 school officials.

The cases rarely get in to court. The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the courts didn't take jurisdiction over federal employment cases because there was an administrative process to handle those claims.

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

"People will nonetheless accept this issue," he said. "And I guess that means a much larger pool of potential clients for me."