TSA proposes a softer rollout of Real ID enforcement

The federal government is set to roll back—yet again—the date by which people must have specially verified driver’s licenses before boarding an airplane or conducting other business with the feds.

But in some ways, the Transportation Security Administration had little choice, faced with the fact that after two decades of prodding and tough talk, only 56% of driver’s licenses in circulation adhere to Real ID standards.    

The TSA unveiled a proposal Thursday that would allow federal agencies to use discretion for two years in how strictly they should enforce the May 7, 2025, deadline for compliance. The open-ended guidance would instruct federal agencies to consider security, operational risk and impact on the public for how they choose to enforce the standards.

“The proposed rule does not extend the Real ID deadline,” the agency said in a press release. “Instead, it would allow TSA to consider a phased enforcement approach to Real ID implementation. Travelers without a Real ID compliant ID or another form of acceptable ID after the May 7, 2025, deadline could face delays at airport security checkpoints.”

In a formal announcement detailing the changes, TSA predicted the May deadline could lead to widespread anxiety and disruptions if agencies didn’t have discretion to enforce the rule as they see fit.

In 34 states, less than 60% of driver’s licenses complied with Real ID at the beginning of the year. For 22 of those states, in fact, fewer than 40% met the standards.

The long history of the Department of Homeland Security setting deadlines for Real ID compliance, only to abandon them as they approached, could make Americans complacent about upgrading their license.

“DHS believes this pattern is likely to delay increased adoption in many states despite best efforts to inform the public, potentially leading to last-minute surges in demand for Real IDs leading up to the deadline,” the agency wrote in a notice of proposed rulemaking. “DHS believes this surge could overwhelm states and result in backlogs and delays in Real ID issuance.”

Not only that, but people would likely show up to federal facilities with noncompliant IDs.

“For some agencies, this scenario may raise serious concerns related to security, agency operations and potential impact to the public,” the department explained. “While these concerns are especially acute in an airport security environment, DHS anticipates that other federal agencies that operate facilities visited frequently by the general public may also face similar concerns.”

Congress passed the Real ID law as part of a massive spending package that lawmakers approved in 2005. The idea came as a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, which wanted states to improve driver’s license security because four of the 19 hijackers in the 2001 terrorist attacks used state-issued driver's licenses to board the planes they later crashed.

President George W. Bush signed the measure into law in May 2005. It originally gave states three years to roll out systems that would verify that an applicant is in the country legally, using federal databases and original documents, such as birth certificates and Social Security cards. The law also imposed security measures for workers who handle driver’s license information or who produce the physical documents.

But state officials immediately protested the federal mandate. In fact, 17 states passed laws restricting or banning its implementation within their borders. Liberals and conservatives alike objected to the law’s costs, federal preemption of state practices and the potential threat to personal privacy.

Those initial objections softened over time. All states, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories that issue driver’s licenses currently comply with the law, according to DHS.

Now the challenge is getting compliant licenses in the hands of drivers, a task that COVID-19 made significantly harder.

Nearly half of all jurisdictions first started issuing Real ID-compliant licenses since 2018, giving people in those places limited time to get the more secure document. The pandemic then slowed down compliance because it forced most states to close their license facilities or limit hours, which led to fewer people getting Real ID-compliant licenses when it was time for them to renew. In fact, license holders have to be physically present at a license facility to get a Real ID, so many likely chose to get a noncompliant card instead, DHS explained.

“DHS observed widespread decreases in Real ID adoption rates coupled with significant increases in noncompliant card issuance rates during, and immediately after, the pandemic. This trend resulted in reduced adoption rates,” the agency wrote in its notice. Before the pandemic, the adoption rate of Real IDs had been increasing by 2.5 percentage points each month. But that dropped to 0.5 percentage points a month in the early days of the pandemic and never got much higher.

At this rate, DHS estimates that only 61.2% of licenses nationally will be Real ID-compliant by the May deadline.

And the pandemic-era dip “will also likely continue to depress adoption rates for several years,” because people tend to upgrade when their current license expires, which usually happens every three to eight years, DHS wrote.