How to Hide Your Baby From the Government

Flying around the world at such a clip isn’t unusual for influencers. But LaHargoue says her children, although born in the US, travel without birth certificates or Social Security numbers. Her thinking is aligned with the sovereign citizen movement: an ever-expanding group of anti-government activists that, for almost half a century, have operated on the belief that they aren’t subject to US law. “Hot take: You don’t actually need a birth certificate to raise a thriving, traveling, fully functional child,” she writes in the same post. “Yeah … I said it. Because we are living proof of it.” By virtue of not registering her two young children’s births, she says her sons are “sovereign babies”—an oft-used hashtag, on accounts such as LaHargoue’s, to describe a child bearing alternative identification documents.

With her brand Veda Revival, LaHargoue offers a white-glove concierge service to new and expecting parents, rooted in the belief that obtaining requisite birth documents is tantamount to entering one’s children into “the jurisdiction of the US corporation.” A larger sovereign citizen movement has existed in the US for decades, with its practitioners similarly eschewing traditional government documents; acts of protest can also include tax evasion, driving without a license, and in the case of Terry Nichols—domestic terrorism. But the rise of influencers selling an alternative means of obtaining a passport, and the idea that babies can be sovereign, represents a new, digitally native outgrowth of this ideology.

For $497, LaHargoue sells a bundle that includes videos and templates for parents to obtain passports for their children based on “nationality” versus “citizenship,” with detailed instructions so they might respond confidently during “interactions with agents of the matrix.” Those seeking something more intensive can pay $997 for “hand-holding,” meaning that LaHargoue will personally guide them in navigating this divergent route. (LaHargoue declined WIRED’s request for an interview, citing the forthcoming birth of her third child.)