The deadline for TSA-compliant 'real IDs' just got delayed again because of the coronavirus pandemic
- The October 1 deadline for "Real ID" compliant identification at TSA checkpoints is delayed again, President Donald Trump said Monday.
- All states but three have updated their ID cards to comply with the 14-year old law.
- "We will be announcing the new deadline very soon. It's going to be announced in a very short moment," Trump said.
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The October 1 deadline for Americans to obtain a "real ID" in order to pass through airport security checkpoints has been delayed yet again, President Donald Trump announced Monday evening.
"At a time when we're asking Americans to maintain social distancing, we do [not] want to require people to go with their local DMV.," he said. "We will be announcing the new deadline very soon. It's going to be announced in a very short moment."
There's no word yet on the new deadline. As of Tuesday afternoon, the DHS website still said October 1, 2020 is the deadline for enforcement.
Earlier in March, members of Congress urged the Department of Homeland Security to consider extending the deadline.
"For implementation to go smoothly, DHS would need tens of millions of Americans to get new identifications over the next several months," reps Peter DeFazio and Bennie Thompson said in a statement, per Bloomberg News. "Creating lines at Departments of Motor Vehicles would be foolish during a pandemic."
The Real ID Act was passed by Congress in 2005 as a way to establish federal standards for state identification cards. Nearly 15 years later, the complete implementation by the Department of Homeland Security has been pushed back yet again.
By October 1, all travelers were supposed to have compliant identification, either in the form of a state ID or drivers license, or passport, passport card, or military ID. That deadline followed other implementations, like accessing DHS headquarters, federal facilities, and nuclear power plants. The deadline for air travel had already been delayed at least once before, in 2017.
Some states, however, still do not have IDs that comply with the act. Oregon and Oklahoma have been granted extensions, according to DHS, with New Jersey's currently under review.
More than 46,000 Americans had been confirmed to be infected by the coronavirus Tuesday, as testing accelerating throughout the country.