Thread: 'Real ID' Bill Caught in Legislative Limbo

Monday, April 04, 2005
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
Fox News
Topics: Licenses, laws, Congress, Senate, Republican, Democrat, Campaign, Illegal Immigration

A bill that would require all states to verify federal immigration documents and birth certificates before issuing federally recognized drivers' licenses to its residents is still in limbo as Congress returns from its Easter recess and possibly toward a renewed push.

The "Real ID Act," sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (search), R-Wis., passed the House 261-161 on Feb. 10. The act would prohibit anyone without a federally recognized state-issued ID from boarding an airplane or accessing federal programs that require federally recognized identification.

Critics say that the legislation would hit at least 10 states particularly hard, be extremely costly and create a national identification system.

Jeff Lundgren, spokesman for the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, told FOXNews.com that Senate Republicans may attempt to attach a version of Real ID to a must-pass bill, like the upcoming war supplemental appropriations expected to come up in the Senate after the Easter recess. But so far, Senate leadership sources say it’s not on any immediate agenda.

"The Senate will have to address it as opposed to ignoring the whole issue," Lundgren said. The White House has already expressed support for the plan.

Aides to Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., say he is expected to introduce his own bill that will be "similar" to Sensenbrenner's, but aides would not confirm how the Senate legislation would deal with "Real ID."

The Real ID Act (search) included provisions that Sensenbrenner said would help tighten some of the weak points in the U.S immigration system, such as allowing judges to reject asylum seekers based on their credibility and making it easier to deport aliens suspected of aiding terrorists.

The licensing standards, he said, are necessary to keep illegal immigrants and potential terrorists from obtaining drivers’ licenses.

"The legislation does not try to set states' policy for those who may or may not drive a car, but it does address the use of a drivers' license as a form of identification to a federal official," Sensenbrenner said in a floor statement on the measure.

"American citizens have the right to know who is in their country, that people are who they say they are and that the name on the driver's license is the real holder's name, not some alias," he added.

If it were to become law, states would have three years to phase in the new IDs.

"It’s all within a three-year period, but the question is, can we do that? The answer is probably not," said Cheye Calvo, director of transportation issues at the National Conference of State Legislatures (search). "It’s trying to make states enforce federal immigration laws by doing what the federal immigration authorities have failed to do … it shifts the whole burden to the states."

An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

The idea for a fraud-resistant ID system was recommended by the Sept. 11 commission (search) as a way to prevent terrorists from gaining access to legitimate identities, much the way it was done by the terrorists behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, who held valid drivers' licenses when they boarded U.S. planes.

"Drivers’ licenses and state ID cards allow you to blend in and we’ve got these vulnerabilities," Lundgren said.

But Calvo said that state and federal representatives had already been working on a rule-making committee to implement licensing standards as federal statute â€â€

I still have reservations about this REALID and that it portends a National ID Card. When they say Americans have a right to know that the person on the card is who they say it is, it isn't for the average American. It's for the pimps in Washington, DC.

Everything is always about control.