I saw these signs all over the place when I was flying this week. Apparently starting January of 2018 state ID will only be accepted from states meeting the 2005 REAL ID requirements.
New York and NJ have extensions which expire on 10/10/2017. I suppose it’s possible we’ll have to start bringing our passports for domestic travel next year.
https://www.dhs.gov/current-status-states-territories
If the impasse between US and the EU continues, they’ve already warned they’ll require a visa if US citizens want to enter Europe
Worth keeping an eye on this over the coming months (for those travelling to Europe)
I have used the ID you get with Global Entry. Not sure if that will continue to be valid or not but better than carrying around your passport for domestic flights.
George
I know the EU Parliament voted yes on eliminating the VISA waiver for US citizens. I find it hard that they would do anything that might further decrease tourism just to be retaliatory.
George
Yes, the GE ID will remain valid. I need to make another interview appointment soon ( I cancelled my first one because my car chose that afternoon to break down).
Jay, GLOBAL ENTRY!
Common sense should prevail, even if we seem to have temporarily misplaced it.
That website is worthless. Not that I was surprised. It does everything but explain what a REAl ID contains and what parts of my State issued ID are not in compliance. So basically the only thing I was interested in finding out by visiting the site. My tax dollars at work!
This was passed initially in 2005 and implementation has been delayed numerous times. A number of government facilities recently (last year?) stopped accepting drivers licenses from states declared not compliant with the REAL ID act as valid forms of identification.
California has come into compliance with most of the REAL ID requirements about the physical form of the license and verification of the holder’s identity. I think the main sticking point in California has been that we issue drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants. The REAL ID requirements generally can’t been met for those individuals, so the law requires that the licenses be clearly marked whether they are REAL ID compliant or not. This is effectively a “scarlet letter” identifying people who may be undocumented (although they may not be, there are reasons why a citizen may lack the required documentation). California and DHS have been negotiating designs for the compliant and non-compliant licenses, basically disagreeing over how different they must be. California is concerned that if the differences are too great, undocumented residents will stop applying for drivers licenses.
The same issue exists in some other states, Washington has been ruled non-compliant because their two types of licenses look identical.
-Al
In Nevada you can get either type of drivers license. The REAL ID has a gold star on the corner. You need additional documentation (not just your old license) to obtain one.
I believe California has been resisting the “gold star” marking, hoping to negotiate a more subtle difference.
-Al
This has long since been resolved here in Cali. Undocumented illegal aliens have very special wording in the upper right corner of their driver’s license that says “FEDERAL LIMITS APPLY”.
California ID’s are Federally compliant and valid for travel.
According to the DHS, California has an extension to come into full compliance. Currently, state IDs from all states are valid for travel (even those issued by states declared non-compliant and those that would be issued to undocumented residents) because the travel restrictions are not yet enforced. It’s true that California has different wording on the two types of licenses, but DHS has not yet accepted that difference as full compliance.
-Al
Considering the fight the state put up and ultimately lost with the Feds I would suspect it’s simply a matter of a small amount of the old-style IDs still floating around that had not yet been replaced. Do you have DHS’ decision on why Cali is not in full compliance?
As far as I know, they don’t publish explanations for why individual states are not in compliance. But, they have a listing on their web-site of the compliance status of each state (in one of the links above).
As far as a few old-style IDs floating around, that would not prevent the state from being in compliance. People with the appropriate new IDs would have REAL ID compliant IDs and the others wouldn’t (just as in Nevada, some have them and some do not but the state is in compliance).
-Al
Here’s DHS’ explanation for Cali.
As of October 2016:
You can continue to use your license to fly in the U.S. and access Federal facilities and nuclear power plants.
As of January 22, 2018:You can continue to use your license to fly in the U.S. and access Federal facilities and nuclear power plants.
As of October 1, 2020:Your state will be compliant or noncompliant by 2020; continue to check for updates.
So Cali is good as is through 2020.
EDIT: Found this…
California is taking steps to try to comply with what the feds want, the DMV said. One of those is legislation passed last year that will make the approval process of licenses for new applicants comply with the federal standards.
That compliance (for everyone, not just California) involves the physical driver’s license document, security around the issuance process and whether the information we applicants provide is true.
That last part is tricky. How do you prove you are a resident of California if you’re, say, moving here? What constitutes proof exactly?
Unknown as of now. Still working on that, the DMV said.
Yes, California has an extension to come into full compliance.
-Al