An American without photo ID will likely be grilled for more than an hour and patted down, and their luggage will be gone over inch by inch while their plane takes off without them.
Businessman Connor Esraelian, who was flying from San Francisco to his home in Chicago, forgot his wallet with his photo ID. He filmed the 75-minute ordeal to get on the plane, posting it on TikTok. He called it “a nightmare.”
He didn’t get an E-ZPass, but migrants do.
This is our government kowtowing to the immigration lobby and putting Americans second, safety be damned.
Even worse is the 16-year delay in implementing the Real ID Act, passed in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks to prevent people from using lax forms of ID to illegally get on planes.
Most of the hijackers used state driver licenses issued by states with lax requirements to get on the planes. They weren’t in the country illegally.
Following the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation, Congress enacted Real ID, barring TSA from accepting state driver licenses or other IDs that don’t require proof of being in the U.S. legally. Real ID was supposed to go into effect in 2008, but it’s been repeatedly delayed. Now the official start date is May 2025. Don’t hold your breath.
All 50 states now provide Real ID licenses to legal residents who request them. But blue states such as New York and Illinois are normalizing being illegal.
Illinois used to issue a license for illegals with a purple stripe across the top and the words “Not Valid for Identification.” But last June, Illinois discontinued it, in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s words, “decreasing stigma and creating more equitable systems for all.”
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said the purple stripe had become “the ‘Scarlet Letter’ of someone’s immigration status.” Now legal and illegal residents of Illinois will qualify for the same “standard license” that says “Federal Limits Apply,” a fuzzy reference to the May 2025 deadline. In the meantime, illegals are boarding planes.
The same is true in New York state, which issues a “standard” license available to everyone, including illegals. It carries a vague notation, “Not for Federal Purposes,” which applies only after May 2025. The state Department of Motor Vehicles is barred from even asking a customer about citizenship status.
New York City’s ID program also blurs the distinction between legals and illegals. It’s advertised as one ID for all New Yorkers regardless of immigration status. The card looks like a state driver license, and nothing — not one word — alerts the viewer otherwise. It’s unlikely to work on a plane, but likely to allow anybody to get past security and into the elevator in an office tower.
An open southern border flooded with millions of migrants from over 100 countries, some hostile to America, puts our nation at risk. Most migrants are just desperately seeking economic opportunity. But it only took a handful of sinister actors with misleading ID to bring down the World Trade Center and cost nearly 3,000 Americans their lives.
Allowing migrants — or anyone — to board airplanes without photo ID, and promoting ID cards that blur that lines between legal and illegal, sabotage us. Don’t let Biden and the hard left play Russian roulette with our lives. Remember 9/11.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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