Render: No good end to Real ID dilemma

Mark Twain once remarked, “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”

He should have added “sanity” to the list, particularly when the New Mexico Legislature is in session.

Rube Render

Our elected officials are once again battling their way through the minefield of driver’s licenses for “immigrants without legal status” as opposed to “immigrants with lawful status” and U.S. citizens.

Without legal status and with lawful status are now the accepted terms for what used to be legal and illegal.

New Mexicans have the right to allow whomever they wish to drive on our highways and what form of license we require to perform that travel. The Transportation Security Administration determines what form of identification will be required to board an aircraft, and there’s the rub.

There are currently four driver’s license bills under consideration in the Legislature, one of which has cleared the Senate Public Affairs Committee.

This bill would allow U.S. citizens and immigrants with lawful status the option to obtain a Real ID-compliant driver’s license. Others, who don’t want a Real ID license or immigrants without legal status, can apply for a “driver’s permit card.”

The remaining three bills in committee also contain two-tier licenses: one for immigrants without legal status and the other for U.S. citizens and immigrants with lawful status.

They range from issuing everyone a New Mexico driver’s license that can’t be used for federal purposes, and then allowing anyone who wants one to apply for a separate Real ID card, or issuing two types of driver’s licenses. One would be a regular license and the other would be a driver’s license that is Real ID compliant. Neither of these licenses would indicate that the holder is an immigrant without legal status.

Left unsaid in all of this is the fact that anyone in this country “with lawful status” already has a valid Real ID card. It’s a Permanent Resident Card, commonly called a green card so those folks can use whatever driver’s license is available and travel by air or ground at their leisure. Active duty and retired military personnel also have Real ID cards.

It appears there are two groups of people here, one of which will be inconvenienced. Either U.S. citizens who wish to fly will be required to obtain a separate Real ID card or immigrants without legal status who wish to drive will be required to obtain a driver’s permit card.

Today’s homework: Explain how this can end well.

Rube Render is the Curry County Republican chairman. Contact him at:

[email protected]