Comment by rubyn00bie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rubyn00bie | Hacker News Reader

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There’s quite a bit of evidence to say there are still millions without one, especially depending on the state, this article is from 9 months ago:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/real-id-deadline-weeks-away-mos...

I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one. I certainly do not believe there are increased costs associated with my existing ID, that would be alleviated with a Real ID. At no point have I ever heard Real ID exists to reduce costs (though if that’s true, I’d love to read how). IMHO it may not be a “cash grab,” but it’s certainly punitive. And, for what it’s worth, there have been no extra steps I’ve had to take or increased screening when using my existing ID for the past year. Same photo machine, same scanner, as everyone else.

I will personally just renew my passport to avoid the fee until I need to renew my drivers license.

> I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one.

I guess that's because you haven't renewed your driver's license yet?

I did last year, precisely because I had to fly, and had to bring a bunch of new documentation I never needed for my previous driver's licenses, including, yes, multiple proofs of both citizenship and residency, and then had to go through a whole additional process because of a slight name discrepancy between documents that they had to get a supervisor to make a judgment call on. It's a totally different verification process that is actually quite meaningfully different.

I thought that too, having seen the requirements, but it turns out it does not really do anything (at least as far as I can tell):

https://reason.com/2025/12/31/dhs-says-real-id-which-dhs-cer...

I mean, that's one agency making a highly contested claim for obvious controversial political reasons.

It's absolutely a totally different and much stricter vetting process from before. Whether you or some other government agency thinks it still doesn't go far enough is a separate question.

Allow me to remind you of what you said:

> I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one.

You seem to have conveniently forgotten that residency was part of the discussion. DHS hasn't contested REAL ID as a means to verify your identity or your residency. They have contested it as a means to verify your citizenship and they are correct because it was never intended to be proof of citizenship or legal residency status.

You do need to show your residency paperwork or prove citizenship when applying as only lawfully present residents are eligible to receive a REAL ID, but only citizens and permanent residents have indefinite legal status and REAL ID doesn't track your status.

I would argue this is a silly gap, but Congress intentionally did not establish a National ID which you would expect to identify nationality. Instead, they created a system which makes it difficult to create ID in multiple states concurrently or under multiple names.

I would further argue that the database required to make REAL ID work ends up with all of the negatives of a national ID, without the most useful benefits. So really, we all lose.

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