Migration Information Source reports that the Department of Homeland Security has declared that all states are compliant with the Real ID driver’s license program, this despite some states still resisting. Part of Real ID’s effect is to make in impossible or close to that for illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses.
Go here for the report with hyperlinks to key documents. The report without the hyperlinks:
All states have complied with the initial driver’s license requirements in the Real ID Act despite opposition to the act in several state legislatures. States had until March 31, 2008, to meet the requirements or seek an extension.
Maine was the last state the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deemed compliant. The state received an extension only after Maine Governor John Baldacci agreed to submit legislation that would prevent unauthorized immigrants from obtaining a state driver’s license.
Many states have been granted extensions to comply with the act’s licensing provisions, including states (Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Washington) that had passed laws banning Real ID’s implementation.
Residents in states that did not comply with the act before March 31 would not have been able to use state-issued driver’s licenses to board airplanes or enter federal buildings beginning May 11, 2008.
Congress passed the Real ID Act in 2005 because the September 11 terrorists had easily obtained multiple state driver’s licenses. Under the act, only US citizens and legal residents can be issued licenses, and the licenses must have enhanced security measures, such as digital photographs