- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
- hackernews
- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
- hackernews
Only the government could spend 20 years creating a national ID that no one wanted and that apparently doesn’t even work as a national ID.
But that’s what the federal government has accomplished with the REAL ID, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now considers unreliable, even though getting one requires providing proof of citizenship or lawful status in the country.
In a December 11 court filing, Philip Lavoie, the acting assistant special agent in charge of DHS’ Mobile, Alabama, office, stated that, “REAL ID can be unreliable to confirm U.S. citizenship.”
To be fair, REAL ID was never meant to give citizenship. Its purpose is identity and lawful presence. I have friends here on visas. They’re obviously not citizens, but also they’re here legally and have REAL IDs.
For this same reason, people trying to say proof of citizenship to vote is no big deal because everyone has a REAL ID is full of shit in multiple ways.
* proof of citizenship or lawful presence. Which is supposed to be indicated on the card. Which is supposed to be validated by DHS.
One of the ways REAL ID doesn’t matter for voting is that putting a ballot in a box is only the very first step in counting a vote, and there are multiple checks whether it’s valid and from person that is allowed to vote afterwards. After several centuries of practice paper voting is pretty thoroughly stress tested. Even if most people have no idea how.
Where does it show citizenship? I think the part you quoted may mean “proof of citizenship or [other means of] lawful presence”
At least in my state, it explicitly means proof of citizenship. Permanent residents have a slightly different ID. The documents required to get one are what you would use to prove citizenship. Passport, birth certificate, etc. and it’s all verified by relevant agencies. That’s kind of the whole point.
Frankly even if they’re “just” lawfully present and that’s not differentiated on the ID, that should be enough reason for DHS to not detain them if any remotely reasonable policy were being followed instead of rounding up people based on skin color.
Is that slightly different ID not REAL compliant? If your state decided to make a citizenship determination when issuing some kind of ID, fine, but I don’t think that’s part of the requirements by DHS so I would still say the title is a bit misleading.
The slightly different ID is REAL ID, not just REAL compliant. It looks like it’s similar to how, in my country, driving licenses are coloured differently depending on whether you’ve passed your driving test; A learner’s provision driving license is green, and when you pass your test, you get a pink one.