Nevada: An Open Letter

Las Vegas Metro Police Dept.

From the 50 State Visitor Guide:

Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. 2019  §§179B and 179D (Effective Oct. 1, 2018)

AWA Compliant

Registration Triggers and Deadlines:

48 hours for initial registration and updates; updates may be in person.  §§179D.460, 479D.480.  However, Nevada SOR office states that visitors for less than 30 days are not placed on the SOR registry but on a separate “visitors registry” that is not public. Visitors must “check in” within 48 hours & provide info to law enforcement. Return to “check out” when departing the state. The “visitors registry” including the dates of your visit(s) is available to law enforcement agencies only.

This SOR office info updated & confirmed Apr. 2021.

Confirmed by Las Vegas Metro Police Dept. Oct. 2021.

Also: North Las Vegas Police “OffenderWatch” Safety Tips:

https://sheriffalerts.com/cap_safety_1.php?office=54127

“Do I have to register as a sex offender in North Las Vegas if I am only visiting? Sex offenders who will be visiting North Las Vegas and will be staying in North Las Vegas for more than 48 hours, must register as “Sex Offender – Visitor”.” (emphasis added)

Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:

No statewide restrictions.

Duration & updates:

15 years to life. §179D.480.

Procedure available for removal from registry after departure.

 

Hey look!  These guys are open weekends & holidays!

Most recent visit: October 2021

Dear Janice & Chance: 

I have been listening in on the ACSOL monthly call-in meetings since you took them virtual on account of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. For a while you began each meeting by announcing a list of potential discussion topics and gauge interest by asking participants to vote on them by virtually “raising hands.” Travel (domestic & international) was always a top vote-getter at every meeting.

Every month, while giving your overview of domestic travel issues before taking questions, you stress the importance of not staying in any state long enough to trigger their requirement to register. Of course I strongly agree with that advice.

Every month, including the Oct. 15, 2022 meeting, you use Nevada is an example of how careful everyone should be, because Nevada state law allows only 48 hours for initial registration, one of the shortest grace periods of any state. §§179D.460, 479D.480.  Nevada, and especially Las Vegas, is a major travel destination for everyone and especially Californians because it’s so close. You must be constantly inundated with questions about Nevada.

What you don’t seem to be aware of is that Nevada is one of a handful of states that, by policy, treats a statutory very short visitor registration requirement as a “duty to check in” but holds SO visitor information separately pending a commitment to depart within a specified time (up to 30 days); your info becomes part of a “visitors registry” that is not made public. Other states that do this are Alaska, South Dakota and Rhode Island.

I first became aware of this separate “visitors registry” while calling every state SOR office as part of my research in 2020. The nice lady at the Nevada SOR office told me all about it. Then, following your advice to not necessarily accept at face value anything some random person at a SOR office says, I called back in April 2021 to re-ask the question, and the same nice lady took my call. She even remembered me from my previous call. She gave me the same answer, with a few additional clarifying details.

And yet, there seems to be nothing on the Nevada SOR website about this, and month after month I hear you emphasize that no registered person should ever be in Nevada for more than 48 consecutive hours. You often say, “Folks, just leave Nevada overnight, get a receipt somewhere to prove it, then go back to continue your visit.”

Again, I strongly agree with that advice for any state that doesn’t maintain a separate unpublished “visitors registry.” Tennessee is an example of such a state with a 48 hour grace period, and if you read my posts about Tennessee you will see I emphasize the importance of watching the clock there. I guarantee you, nobody wants to wind up on Tennessee’s registry.

But what about Nevada? On my October 2021 Southwest trip, I decided to put this state to the ultimate test. I was passing through Nevada anyway on my way from California to Utah. So, restricting myself to two partial days in-state and foregoing all the potential sins and delights of Las Vegas, my one and only stop was the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. My sole purpose was to find out if they knew anything about this separate unpublished “visitors registry."

If there’s one thing I always say about police registry offices it’s this: “The person sitting at the desk behind the bullet proof glass is without a doubt the least knowledgeable person in the whole building.” That was certainly the case here. She had never heard of any “visitors registry.” However, with a little prodding I was able to get her to go ask her supervisor about it, and when she came back a few minutes later she smiled cheerfully and said, “Yes, there is a visitors registry, and as long as you check in within 48 hours of your arrival, and give us all the information about your visit, and come back to check out before you leave, you will go on that visitors registry.” So as far as I can tell Nevada’s unpublished “visitors registry” is a real thing.

You may be wondering why any state SOR office, whether in Nevada, Alaska, South Dakota, Rhode Island or elsewhere, would go out of their way to create a separate visitors registry when it’s not spelled out in state law. As a person who worked as a government bureaucrat his entire career (until I ruined my life), I’m confident I know the answer: work avoidance.

You see, these states have very short visitor registration requirements, but they also have standardized procedures available to remove you from their registries after you leave (unlike Tennessee, Florida and 13 other states that keep you on their registries forever in order to pad their numbers and get more federal funding).

What this means for a SOR office (or sheriff’s department) bureaucrat is that any time a visitor is forced to register, they have to do all the work of adding that person to their registry and posting it on their website. Then as soon as that person leaves the state they have to do all the work of removing that person from their registry and their website.  That’s double the work for somebody they really couldn’t care less about. Thus is born the separate, low effort “visitors registry.”

While I was updating all my state by state research in August 2022, the nice lady at the South Dakota SOR office came right out and confirmed this when she said, “We have hundreds of sex offenders coming to the Sturgis Bike Rally every year.  They typically stay more than three days but less than a week.  Why would we want to register all these people and then have to remove them a few days later?”

[As an aside, I was amused by how the SOR lady’s description of the Sturgis Bike Rally made it sound like an annual sex offenders’ reunion.  Hey, maybe NARSOL or ACSOL should hold next year’s national conference in Sturgis during the rally and make it official?]

The SOR lady stressed that all they are asking is that visiting registrants staying more than three days come in from the summer heat and check in at the local sheriff’s department, then check out when you leave.  No harm, no foul.

Meanwhile, I have no choice but to point out that you are giving incomplete information about Nevada (and Rhode Island, which you often mention) on every monthly ACSOL phone call.

Sincerely,

Atwo Zee, Registered Traveler 

 Manitoba (well ... sort of)

International Peace Garden Entrance. U.S. Customs station is in background at left.

From the 50 State Visitor Guide : North Dakota

N.D. Century Code 2021 §§12.1-20-25, 12.1-32.15, 12.1-34-06

Registration Triggers and Deadlines:

3 days for initial registration of “residence” (not defined).  3 days for registration of “temporary domicile,” defined as being physically present in state for more than 10 consecutive days, present in state for more than 30 days in a calendar year, or at a location for longer than 10 consecutive days. §12.1-32.15(1)(h), (2).

Visitors: Per N Dak. SOR office, visitors must register if in state 10 consecutive days or 30 days per calendar year.

Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:

Residency Restriction: “High-risk” offenders may not reside within 500 ft. of a public or private school. §12.1-32-13. 

Presence restriction: May not knowingly enter school without permission, subject to exceptions. §12.1-20-25.

Duration & updates:

15 to life. Frequency of updates determined by AG. §12.1-32.15.

Updates: Homeless – every 3 days. §12.1-32.15(2). Others vary.

International Peace Garden: September 2022

If you want to dip your toe into Canada and pretend you have beaten the restrictions on international travel we registered citizens face, there is the International Peace Garden, which straddles the border between North Dakota and Manitoba.  

Driving past the U.S. Customs station on my way to the International Peace Garden entrance. 

Turn left before you get to the Canadian Customs station which is in the far background in this photo.

From the U.S. side, travel north from Dunseith, ND on U.S. 281 right up to the international border.  The park entrance is actually a few yards (oh, excuse me, meters) on the Canadian side, but it’s purposefully located between the two Customs Stations.  You’ll drive right past the U.S. Customs Station, then turn left into the park entrance just before you get to the Canadian Customs Station.  Pay your $25 entrance fee and TADAAAH! you’re in Canada – no questions asked!

I took the nerve-wracking precaution of stopping at the U.S. Customs Station to make sure all my paperwork was definitely in order and I wouldn’t get hand-cuffed on my way back into the U.S.  I offered the guy at the drive thru window not just my driver’s license but also my registry sheets from both Florida and Iowa which proved that I had permission to be in North Dakota on the day I was there.  

He was very easy-going and after looking me up on his computer handed everything back to me and said there was no need for me to have stopped on my way to the Peace Garden, only on the way back.  In fact when I did come through on my way back he was very friendly and asked how did I like it?  “Very nice!” I said.

So there you go.  I have done the nerve-wracking part for you, my fellow registrants, so now you can drive right past the U.S. Customs Station without breaking into a cold sweat.

Formal Garden with international boundary marked in bricks and water feature.

Now let’s talk about the Peace Garden itself.  The central portion which runs along the U.S. – Canada border comprises a formal garden surrounded by a scenic drive.  There are a conservatory and interpretive center, a sunken garden, sculptures, a 9/11 memorial and a peace chapel.  Two other scenic loop roads branch a few miles (kilometers) from the central drive, one into Canada and one into the U.S.  

At the North American Game Warden Museum

Unfortunately all the developed facilities, including the campground and rental cabins, are on the U.S. side.  These also include a game warden museum, an international music camp and performing arts center, and a Masonic retreat and auditorium.  Mental note:  there’s absolutely no food available at the International Peace Park, so you’ll have to bring it all with you.

Peaceful picnic area in Manitoba

I guess Manitoba doesn’t feel like spending much money on this park because on their side there are only a few picnic areas and hiking trails.  Unfortunately for registered visitors this means you can only camp on the North Dakota side.  You’ll always be subject to that state’s visitor rules because you’ll spend at least part of every day in North Dakota and as with most states you must assume that any partial day will count as a full day towards your stay there.

North Dakota’s visitor rules are about average among U.S. states and not too tough to live with.  You get ten consecutive days (including partial days) or 30 days per calendar year, which in this very special situation means that even though park rules allow you to stay at the campground up to two weeks you really can’t stay more than nine days (including getting yourself into and out of North Dakota) because the tenth day would trigger an obligation to register in this state and you don’t want to do that.

International Peace Garden map

In theory, of course, if you were able to hike over into Manitoba and “primitive camp” there for two consecutive nights and a full day spent outside of North Dakota, you’d be able to return to your campsite on the ND side and restart the clock to extend your stay.  The trick would be having a permit with a receipt from the park office to document your out-of-state excursion, and therein lies the rub.  If Manitoba had any intention of letting you camp overnight on their side, surely they’d have a campground there for you to use.  So what makes you think they’ll give you a permit to primitive camp along one of their hiking trails?  Nothing.  And without a dated permit you’ve got nothing to prove you were ever out of North Dakota when you emerge from the Peace Garden and go back through U.S. Customs several days later.

And now to permanently extinguish any lingering fantasy you may be having about whether you could check into the Peace Garden, walk across the border and disappear into Canada to escape America’s registry.  First: there is, actually, a Manitoba provincial park abutting and surrounding the Peace Garden on their side.  Whether there is some kind of electrified fence preventing you from leaving the Peace Garden over there I do not know because I didn’t check and of course I didn’t ask such a nakedly suspicious question.  

But even if there isn’t, what the hell would you do once you got into Canada with no ID and no passport and no nothing else?  Apply for political asylum based on the unconstitutionality of your U.S. registry status?  No.  According to the RTAG (Registered Travel Action Group) site, Canada doesn’t discriminate against registered people.  Instead, their policy is to not let ANY convicted felon of any kind into their country.  Once you get caught (which you will) they’ll arrest you and toss you back across the U.S. border where you’ll be immediately arrested and sent to jail.  Is that really how you want to want to spend your vacation?

Having said all that, it is fun to dip your toe into a foreign country at the International Peace Garden.  Also, I believe this isn’t the only border-crossing, toe-dipping opportunity along the Canadian border and perhaps even the Mexican border.  I think I will see if I can find some others and report to you on them too.