Finally, here’s the deadline for obtaining real identity. On May 7, about two years after kicking the cans down, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will eventually need real IDs from passengers or other compliance form (then more). It is safe to say that no one is ready for it. TSA is taking a break for chaos at airports, and are DMV offices across the country Report lines out of door.
By mid -April, 81 % of people traveling through TSA checkpoints had other forms of real identity or compliance identification, According to the agency. For one in five passengers who don’t, however, the last date of May 7 can be implemented as a trauma. The Real ID Act was approved as part of national security enthusiasm in the context of the September 11 attacks in 2005, and it was believed that it should be fully implemented by 2008. After seventeen years and several delays, the deadline is finally here.
“People will experience travel delays,” TSA spokesman Patricia Mancha, Told CBS News In April, “people have really passed to plan for it, so the TSA will only enforce the rules and regulations when they apply.”
It is true that years have passed for people – 20 of them, in fact – for preparation. But the deadline has been pushed back so many times that a reasonable person assumed that it would happen again. The deadline for early 2008 was delayed due to concerns about privacy and implementation.
“Most people have no idea what the (real identification act) is merely hurting about it,” said UD Offer, a former New York Civil Liberties Union lawyer. Voices. “But when the law was passed, there was an incredible ideological diversity in the voices of opposition.”
While a regular driver’s license works as a person’s identity and accommodation in a particular state, the real ID – synchronized driver’s license also provides evidence of a person’s lawful status in the United States.
Like group Electronic Frontier Foundation, ACLUAnd bent to the right American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has all opposed the Real ID Act on the basis that it enhances government monitoring capabilities while doing nothing to protect national security. Critics say the real ID is effectively a national identity card, as it requires a national database that connects the individual records of each state. ACLU has warned that the real ID “can simplify the figures related to individuals and bring the government to the center of every citizen’s life,” while the EEI has said that the ID “will eliminate civil liberties without any effective benefit.” And in the Trump era, it is also worth noting that the real ID cannot be issued to non -documentary immigrants, even in the states where they are eligible to obtain a driver’s license otherwise. Even in American citizens, given the overall non -compliance with the real identity Act, there is no reason why the real ID lack will not indicate that there is no permission in the country – but the enthusiasm for the deportation of a process without the Trump administration, with the implementation of the real ID, is still a threat.
Despite the shock by urban Liberties groups, the delay was eventually more about logistics rather than theory. All 50 states Even did not submit real IDS until September 202015 years after the preliminary legislative process. The Congress pushed the deadline three times since the beginning of the Covade 19 pandemic diseases, recently in 2022, when it was delayed by May 2025-which is now.
The chaos does not spread all over the country. A CBS News Analysis has shown that the Real ID Act in a handful of states: Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wooming, and Washington, DC. The compliance rate of five other states – Texas, Mississippi, Hawaii, Utah, and Vermont – is more than 90 %.
Elsewhere in the country, people are roaming to achieve real identity before the deadline. New Jersey has the lowest rate of compliance in the country, only 17 % of IDs have been released by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). People are reportedly driving across the state and waiting for hours to get ID before the deadline. A jersey resident a resident Told New York Times. “You can’t find anything.”
The state allegedly releases 23,000 real IDs every week and posts thousands of new appointments every morning, some residents check the DMV website at midnight to secure the slot. New Jersey also has a “emergency program” for people traveling within 14 days for reasons for “life or death”. Illinois, where two-thirds of residents do not have real ID-construction identity, is in a similar position. Illinois DMV opened a real ID “Super Center” in Chicago, where 1,500 IDs are released daily.
To get a real ID, you need documents that show your full legal name, date of birth, and social protection number. You also need to provide two accurate evidence and evidence of your lawful status in the United States. Unlike the driver’s licenses regularly, the upper right corner of the real ID has a little gold or black star. (In California, the symbol is a little bear inside which is a star.)
But not all are lost for travelers who still lack a real ID. Tsa Will also accept Passports, green cards, tribal IDs, accurate military IDs, global entry issued by the Department of Homeland Security, reliable traveler cards, “improved” ID or security cards issued by some states, and other types of identification. Travelers who have none of the above mentioned will be subject to extra screening.
“We have other ways to confirm your identity if you have no real identity or acceptable form of ID,” a TSA spokesman said in A. Ask me anything recently threads On Reddate, “But know that this process may take a long time, so you will need to get to the airport quickly.”
In other words: expect long lines, chaos, and even more frustration and confusion at TSA checkpoints on May 7 – and maybe for a few months.
