If only it was this bad. REAL ID only proves you were at one point allowed to be here. It doesn't prove you're allowed to be here right now (which can change arbitrarily and at any time apparently)
The state should avoid giving a REAL ID to anyine who isn't at least a permanent resident of the US (and the distinction between cirizen and non-citizen IDs should be very obvious). A lot of illegal immigrants are people who legally entered the US on a temporary visa, and overstayed; and it would be good if basically every American bureaucracy was quickly, consistently, and legibly checking for that status.
Instead, the situation we have now is that many bureaucracies deliberately avoid making any citizenship or legal residency distinction on official documents because the polticians who determine the rules for those bureaucracies think immigration enforcement is immoral and want to make it easier for illegal immigrants to access American bureaucracies and harder for other bureaucracies controlled by less immigration-friendly polticians to detect illegal immigrants.
> The state should avoid giving a REAL ID to anyine who isn't at least a permanent resident of the US
REAL ID or certain alternative federal ID is required to enter federal buildings and domestic flights. The only immigrants who are issued federal ID that is usable in place of real ID are permanent residents. Ergo, your plan would have states effectively ban legally-present non-citizens who are not permanent residents from federal buildings and domestic flights. This is a bad idea; and, absent a specific federal mandate, probably unconstitutional for states to do.
States could, as some do, issue restricted term REAL IDs to aliens who are not permanent residents, but REAL ID isn’t intended as proof-of-status but an identity document, so while that's doable, it doesn't seem to be particularly necessary.
(Yes, foreign passports are also permissible “federal ID” in place of REAL ID, but there are legally present aliens who may not have passports—particularly refugees—and who are also not issued federal ID by the US government because, except for permanent resident aliens, the US has generally declined to have national ID and given ID functions to the state; REAL ID nationalized standards for some uses instead of nationalizing the ID itself.)
I'm not sure what documents you think entail getting a REAL ID but they are typically proof of permanent residence, such as US passport, birth certificate, or green card. Its requirements are actually stricter than what entails getting a passport, because you also have to prove you actually live in the state you're applying in.
As for the rest of your post, I don't really know what you're babbling about has to do with what I wrote.
I checked the State of California website for REAL ID eligibility before I wrote my above comment, and it confirms that people with temporary legal immigration status are eligible for REAL ID cards, specifically mentioning DACA recipients as an example of a category of people who are eligible. This is exactly the sort of thing I think should not be allowed by the federal framework governing REAL IDs, non-permanent residents should not be able to get a REAL ID at all under any circumstances and the one for permanent residents should look obviously distinct from those for citizens. The point of this is to make it extremely obvious that a REAL ID holder is definitely a legal citizen, and therefore make it actually useful for proving citizenship or legal permanent residency.
You're effectively saying non-permanent residents should be prohibited from using commercial flight to move around the giant country that is the US. I'm not sure if that's your intention.
I've personally flown domestic commercial flights in at least two foreign countries (China and Mexico), that I have no legal permanent residency in, using the same American passport I used as ID to enter these countries to begin with; and there was no issue. I don't even know what the Chinese or Mexican equivalent of a REAL ID might be like. I'm sure the US could create a similar legal ID framework for domestic air travel.
California is an outlier here. I am a permanent resident in Washington and Washington will only issue REAL ID-compliant Enhanced Drivers Licenses to US citizens, not to LPRs.
Maybe it is, I don't know the rules as they exist in every state - but that's also a problematic aspect of the REAL ID system: because the rules vary somewhat from state to state, authorities in one state who are used to one system for who can be legitimately given a REAL ID might make bad assumptions about someone from another state with different rules. And in any case, California is the most populous state by far, so even if it's an outlier, that still affects a huge percentage of the entire US population.
We really should have one, federally issued ID system, that works uniformally everywhere in the country for demonstrating citizenship and legal permanent residency, and that no other category of person can be able to legitimately obtain.
Washington is one of a handful of states (all bordering Canada) that offer enhanced driver's licenses, which are by definition meant to prove US citizenship so you can use it to travel back to the US from Canada.
