So, How Was Harjinder Singh Able To Fly Back To California?

Here's a question nobody's asked: the accepted narrative of the illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike has Harjinder Singh wandering expressionlessly around the scene after the accident and then, apparently free to leave, flying back to California, where the US Marshals tracked him down and arrested him several days later. But here's the rub:

Passed by Congress in 2005, the REAL ID Act enacted the 9/11 Commission's recommendation that the Federal Government “set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver's licenses.” The Act established minimum security standards for state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards and prohibits certain federal agencies from accepting for official purposes licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards.

The official purposes for which a REAL ID is required include boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft. As it happens, my California Drivers License expires in November, so I've been undertaking the process of upgrading it to meet the REAL ID requirements. On one hand, I can't opt out of the REAL ID requirement; I simply have to upgrade my ID to meet its standards, or I can't drive legally. On the other, I can't fly on a commercial airline without displaying a REAL ID, either. (Luckily, I haven't needed to.)

The restriction on anyone flying without a REAL ID began this past May 7. I would have had to upgrade my drivers license early to fly since then, or I would have had to present another form of ID acceptable under the REAL ID Act. The most cited alternative is a current US passport:

The card, itself, must be REAL ID compliant unless the resident is using an alternative acceptable document such as a passport.

While a passport will get me on a plane in a pinch, it alone isn't sufficient for me to renew my drivers license to be REAL ID compliant. But this brings us to my question: it's after May 7, and Harjinder Singh was able to get on a plane, presumably without a valid REAL ID. In fact, as we see above, the whole purpose of REAL ID was to avoid having sketchy foreign nationals like the 9/11 hijackers get on a plane in the US -- but Harjinder, a sketchy foreign national, was able to do just this.

And he was able to do it without the highly bureaucratic process legal residents of the 50 states must undergo to upgrade their own ID. California's requirements are standard:

To apply for a REAL ID, you must present several documents, including ONE proof of identity document from the list below. This document must include your date of birth and your full name (first, middle, and last).

The list includes Valid U.S. passport or passport card (Preferred); Original or Certified copy of U.S birth certificate (issued by a city, county, or state vital statistics office). “Abbreviated” or “Abstract” certificates are NOT accepted; Certificate of Naturalization or Certificate of U.S. Citizenship; and on down a list. There are two important exceptions, which I'll get to below.

I've held a US passport for most of my life, but passports expire, and as part of preparing to upgrade my ID, I had to renew it yet again, a process that takes weeks at best -- and since at my age, I'm unlikely to leave the country again, this would have been otherwise completely unnecessary. But in addition,

To prove that you live in California, you must present TWO DIFFERENT printed documents that show your California mailing address. BOTH documents must show your first and last name with the same mailing address that is listed on your REAL ID application.

Use a P.O. Box? One document MUST show both your P.O. Box and physical (residence) address, and one document may show only the P.O. Box.

So this is another new step, and it's fraught with bureaucratic gotchas. I saw a post from a Pennylvania woman who had one utility bill with her first, middle, and last names and another with just her first and last names, and the state forced her to get the utility to change the billing data on the one bill to add her middle name to the bill. This will likely take weeks of extra effort in itself. I can only assume Pennsylvania has stricter requirements than California.

In addition, the only practical way to get through this process -- that is, without going back and forth to the DMV office to wait in line and deal with all this in person, probably over several days or weeks -- is on line. But this requires not just a computer, but a scanner to scan the various documents, and considerable computer literacy. A semiliterate or illiterate illegal who quite possibly speaks no English won't be able to do this. But that's not a bug, it's a feature, right? It should be not just difficult, but impossible for sketchy foreign nationals to get REAL ID.

Not so fast! There's a big exception for sketchy foreign nationals! Farther down on the list of acceptable identity documents are these:

Valid Employment Authorization Document (EAD) Card (I-766) or valid/expired EAD Card with Notice of Action (I-797 C)

Documents reflecting TPS benefit eligibility.

in Harjinder's case, the I-766 card, for which he was rejected under Trump 45, but which he was later granted under Biden, was enough to get California to issue him a commercial drivers license in 2024, and it was enough to get him on the plane back to California last week. TPS benefits are "Temporary Protected Status", under which hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Haitians, and Cubans who shouldn't have been were settled in Middle America.

In other words, the REAL ID program sets up enormous bureaucratic hoops and barriers that solid citizens have to jump through and climb over, requiring patience and civic-minded cooperation over many weeks and months in order to keep sketchy foreign nationals off planes -- unless you happen to be a sketchy foreign national like Harjinder Singh, in which case, welcome aboard! You want to escape being arrested in Florida, no problemo, just show your I-766 work permit for sketchy foreign nationals, and your seat is 26C.

Something needs to be done about this.