The U.S. government saw a problem. The U.S. government spent 20 years creating a solution to that problem at a significant burden to the people. The U.S. government made certain that this burdensome solution in no way solves the problem.
This story, which has probably played out a thousand times in the last century, is the story of the Real ID.
The Real ID story begins in the summer of 2001, in a northern Virginia neighborhood known as Bailey’s Crossroads. At the Culmore shopping center, an illegal immigrant looking for day labor outside a 7-Eleven named Luis Martinez-Flores was approached with an unusual request. Two Saudi nationals, Hani Hanjour and Khalid al Mihdhar, asked him to sign an affidavit attesting to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles that they lived on Leesburg Pike. That single document was enough to secure them Virginia state IDs, and those IDs were enough to allow them to board the flight they hijacked just weeks later.
In response to 9/11, Congress and the Bush administration did a lot of things. Some of them were common sense. Some of them did more harm than good, such as invading Iraq and creating the Transportation Security Administration. One of the most pointless responses was the Real ID Act.
It sneaked through Congress as a rider on an emergency funding bill, and then it took 20 years to implement. Finally, in 2025, the Department of Homeland Security made it clear: You don’t get to board a flight if you don’t have a Real ID.
To get the Real ID, you had to prove your legal presence in the United States and prove your address. Finally, we would have an ID proving your citizenship or lawful residence here, and this would make sure no terrorist or criminal was exploiting weak state systems in order to get on an airplane.
Well, unless the terrorist has $45.
Starting in February, according to the TSA, anyone without a Real ID will go through some unspecified alternative screening process and pay $45, and then board an airplane.
So no, you still don’t need a Real ID to get on a plane.
Also, Trump administration officials say that Real ID isn’t a reliable way to prove someone is a citizen.
TRUMP’S BABY BONDS MISS THE MARK
DHS officials, in explaining why they detained a U.S. citizen with a Real ID during an immigration raid, explained that they “needed to further verify his U.S. citizenship because each state has its own REAL ID compliance laws, which may provide for the issuance of a REAL ID to an alien and therefore based on HSI Special Agent training and experience, REAL ID can be unreliable to confirm U.S. citizenship.”
So your national ID card is neither necessary nor sufficient to do anything. Aren’t you glad we spent 20 years on this project?