20 Years of State and Local Real-Id’s Compliance During the Preliminaries of the COVID-19 Pandemic
The federal government is also still reviewing how well states have done. Brian Zimmer, who since his retirement from his job in Congress has worked as a consultant on REAL-ID laws, says the Transportation Safety Administration is now auditing compliance, and it’s starting with the states it thinks have done the best job. He thinks that this will allow for a little more time for the states to catch up.
While the deadline in airports is finally upon us, the system is still getting pushback. Maine officials requested a delay in the federal deadline because only a small percentage of their licenses are compliant.
Millions of people have yet to apply for the REAL ID versions of their states’ driver licenses, which often cost more and require more documentation. Lucia Orozco said that she and her family are sticking with the non-REAL ID version, even though it won’t work in airports.
The two-tier system of state ID’s is being attacked by the Trump Administration. Sean P. Duffy, the Secretary of transportation sent a letter to all state and local recipients of transportation funding in April that warned them of repercussions if they continue to issue licenses to residents without checking immigration status.
The result, 20 years on, is a variety of “flavors” of REAL ID. A star, a star inside a circle, or a star inside a bear is used by most states to show which of their IDs are compliant with the federal standard. Washington’s “Enhanced Driver License” is not a REAL ID-compliant one, but it’s available only to U.S. citizens and was originally intended for land border crossing. It is marked with a flag, not a star.
The delays had more to do with practicalities than ideology. The initial legislation on REAL IDs went into effect 15 years later than the 50 states. Congress pushed back the deadline three times since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, most recently in 2022, when it was delayed until May 2025 — which is now.
The origin of the name J. Sensenbrenner, R-Wis, when the Oklahoma City bombers bought their fertilizer
“When I wrote my dissertation, I was thinking ‘It’s just a requirement — people fulfill their requirement and get their ID.’ Then it comes with ideology, your view of the world, technology, and how much information you share.
Udi Ofer, a former New York Civil Liberties Union attorney, said that most people don’t know what REAL ID is about and assume that it’s a hassle in the Department of Motor Vehicles. “But when the law passed, there was an incredible ideological diversity in the voices of opposition.”
One of the goals of the law was to get states to issue ID’s that are harder to counterfeit, and also to make sure the information they put on those cards is legit. The law was designed to avoid the politically controversial step of creating a national ID card, by working through the states.
The kids don’t understand why it is called that when you have to bring your state licenses to a concert. And Sensenbrenner was told, ‘Well you bring your real I.D.’ That’s where the name came from.
“Because the Oklahoma City bombers bought their fertilizer [for the bomb] using a counterfeit ID made by a wife of one of them on an ironing board,” says Zimmer, who was a researcher for the House Judiciary Committee.
The 9/11 attackers were legal in the country and fake ID’s did not come into play. Still, 9/11 added momentum to Congress’ actions.
“I wrote the REAL ID act,” Zimmer says, but he says credit for the name goes to his boss at the time, former House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.
“Sensenbrenner wanted something that everybody would get. “You know, common language,” he says. So Sensenbrenner asked staffers fresh out of college for suggestions.
The new flying ID restrictions are here, and they’re a mess: A TSA spokesperson said earlier in a CBS News thread on Reddit
“We have other ways to verify your identity if you don’t have a REAL ID or acceptable form of ID,” a TSA spokesperson said in a recent Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit, “but know that this process may take a considerable amount of time, so you’ll need to arrive at the airport early.”
The Transportation Security Administration told CBS News that people will experience travel delays. “People have had years to really plan for this, so TSA will simply enforce the laws and the rules as they apply.”
It’s true that people have had years — 20 of them, in fact — to prepare. The deadline was pushed back so many times a reasonable person could have thought it would happen again. The initial 2008 deadline was delayed because of concerns over privacy and the cost of implementation.
Source: The new flying ID restrictions are here, and they’re a mess
NJ residents are scrambling to get real IDs before the deadline: a report on a NJ man living in the shadow of the DMV
Elsewhere in the country, people have been scrambling to get REAL IDs before the deadline. New Jersey has the lowest rate of compliance in the country, with just 17 percent of IDs issued by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) being REAL IDs. People are reportedly driving across the state and waiting hours in line to get IDs before the deadline. The New York Times reported that a Jersey resident said everyone he knew was fighting to get one. “You can’t find any, at all.”