February 11, 2005: The United States House of Representatives voted yesterday to approve H.R. 418, which would "establish and rapidly implement regulations for State driver's license and identification document security standards, to prevent terrorists from abusing the asylum laws of the United States, to unify terrorism-related grounds for inadmissibility and removal, and to ensure expeditious construction of the San Diego border fence." It would make states verify that they're not giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and it would grant judges broader power to deport political asylum seekers they suspect may be terrorists. H.R. 418 also would waive environmental hurdles in order to allow the completion of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border south of San Diego. The legislation, which was called the Real ID Act by its sponsor, Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), passed by a 261-161 vote and next it must be passed by the Senate.

States would have three years to comply with the new federal standards dictating what features driver's licenses must have. They could still issue special driving permits to illegal aliens, but those permits would not be recognized as identities for boarding airlines or allowing entry to federal buildings. A number of nasty amerndments were added to the bill. Republicans said the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had multiple driver's licenses that enabled them to slip through security and board the planes they flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and that crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania. However, not of their driver's licenses were falsified, nor were the men were all in the country legally. Opponents to the legislation, who include a broad coalition of groups supporting immigrant rights, civil rights and states' rights and environmentalists, say the bill would drive the country's 8 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants further underground, deprive legitimate asylum seekers of protection and gut environmental laws and endanger illegal immigrants' lives by allowing border fence construction.

Articles about the bill Organizations such as the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund (NALEO) have written to President Bush to ask him to oppose the Real ID Act and to work towards immigration reform.