This fall, the Department of Homeland Security and its pro‐national ID allies staged a push to move more states toward complying with REAL ID, the U.S. national ID law. The public agitation effort was so successful that passport offices in New Mexico were swamped with people fearing their drivers’ licenses would be invalid for federal purposes. A DHS official had to backtrack on a widely reported January 2016 deadline for state compliance.
DHS continues to imply that all but a few holdout states stand in the way of nationwide REAL ID compliance. The suggestion is that residents of recalcitrant jurisdictions will be hung out to dry soon, when the Transportation Security Administration starts turning away travelers who arrive at its airport checkpoints with IDs from non‐compliant states.