The real story of REAL-ID is that more people than ever are flying in the US without REAL-ID, with ID the TSA considers “unacceptable”, or with no ID at all.| Papers, Please!
On Wednesday, May 7, 2025, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to start treating driver’s licenses and state IDs that don’t comply with the REAL-ID Act as “unacceptable” ID at TSA checkpoints. That doesn’t mean that travelers without REAL-ID won’t be allowed to fly. What the TSA has said is that it will subject travelers without REAL-ID on or after May 7th to its current procedures for airline passengers with no ID or unacceptable ID.| Papers, Please!
[Summary of TSA procedures for airline passengers with no ID or unacceptable ID, from DHS Office of Inspector General report OIG-2024-65, September 2024]| Papers, Please!
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have planted a story with Fox News falsely claiming that enforcement of the REAL-ID Act of 2005 at airports will prevent “illegal aliens” from boarding domestic airline flights within the US:| Papers, Please!
The US State Department is withholding passports from some US citizens, effectively denying them the ability to leave or return to the US, without any basis in law or regulations.| Papers, Please!
Brushing off objections from the Identity Project and others, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has issued regulations creating the framework for an all-purpose smartphone-based national digital ID and tracking system.| Papers, Please!
Inspired by this debt-collection windfall, Congress next added a section to another unrelated section of the statute book, 26 U.S. Code § 7345, effective in 2015, to deny a US passport to any US citizen reported to the State Department by the IRS as having been assessed $50,000 or more (increasing each year in step with the cost of living) in unpaid taxes.| Papers, Please!
[CAIR Senior Litigation Attorney Gadeir Abbas speaks to press conference in front of the U.S. Supreme Court following oral argument in FBI v. Fikre.]| Papers, Please!