The new flying ID Restrictions are a mess, they’re here

What the Feds are doing to enforce the REAL ID Act? The New Constraints from Senator Brian Vaughan and the Maine Department of Transportation

The federal government is also still reviewing how well states have done. After retiring from congress, Brian was hired as a consultant on REAL-ID laws by the transportation safety administration, and he said that they are auditing compliance in states they think have done the best job. He says that should allow a little more time for those states that may have yet to fully catch up to the federal standard.

While the deadline in airports is finally upon us, the system is still getting pushback. In Maine, officials asked for another delay in the federal deadline due to only 25% of their licenses being compliant.

“Drivers’ licenses unlock access to a lot of privileges and benefits that shouldn’t be available to people here illegally, including employment and welfare benefits,” says Jessica Vaughan, with the Center for Immigration Studies. She’s especially critical of states that have made their REAL ID licenses look similar to the licenses available to people without legal status, such as Massachusetts.

But this two-tier system of state ID’s is now coming under attack from the Trump Administration. The Secretary of Transportation sent a letter to the recipients of federal transportation funding in late April reminding them that there could be penalties if they continue to issue licenses to residents without checking their immigration status.

In a country where chaos is not evenly spread. A CBS News analysis found that a handful of states have near-total compliance with the REAL ID Act: Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Washington, DC. Five other states have compliance rates greater than 90 percent.

She says that about half of the states initially resisted REAL ID because of cost, privacy, and the burden of providing the extra documentation. The deadline was repeatedly delayed by the federal government.

“When I wrote my dissertation, I was thinking ‘It’s just a requirement — people fulfill their requirement and get their ID.’ It comes with ideology, view of the world, technology, and your identity.

Udi Ofer, a former NY Civil Liberties Union lawyer, said most people don’t know about the REAL ID Act or what it is about. “But when the law passed, there was an incredible ideological diversity in the voices of opposition.”

There are two goals to the law: have states issue ID’s that are harder to counterfeit, and require states to do more to check the information they put on those cards. Legislation was put in place to avoid a political step of creating a national ID card.

When the kids need to bring their actual state driver’s licenses to a concert, what does they call it? And Sensenbrenner was told, ‘Well you bring your real I.D.’ That’s where the name came from.

“Because the Oklahoma City bomber used a fake ID made by his wife on an ironing board, they bought the bomb and used it.” said a researcher for the House Judiciary Committee.

The 9/11 attackers were legal in the country, and there wasn’t a need for fake ID’s. Congress’ actions were strengthened by 9/11.

“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.” staffers were asked to suggest suggestions for Sensenbrenner.

The deadline to get a REAL ID is here: Long lines, chaos, and frustration in the U.S. at the TSA checkpoints

At long last, the deadline to get a REAL ID is here. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will require REAL IDs or other compliant forms of identification to board domestic flights in the US on May 7th after almost two years of kicking the can. No one is prepared for it. There are lines out the door at many places, and the agency is bracing for chaos at airports.

In other words: expect long lines, chaos, and even more frustration and confusion than usual at TSA checkpoints on May 7th — and probably for a few months afterwards.

People have had 20 years to prepare, and that is true. But the deadline has been pushed back so many times that a reasonable person could’ve assumed it’d happen again. The deadline for 2008 was delayed due to privacy and cost issues.

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. “Everyone I know is fighting to get one,” one Jersey resident told The New York Times. “You can’t find any, at all.”