REAL ID: Perpetuating the Myth of Authenticity

For those who don’t know about it, the Real ID Act (HR418) was attached to the $82 billion emergency supplemental appropriations bill (HR1268) for military expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan and signed by President Bush on May 11, 2005. Under this legislation, the minimum standards for issuing a driver’s license are: a photo ID, documentation of date of birth, proof of social security number, and documentation of principal residence. 

Before issuing drivers’ licenses, states are also now required to verify legal residency within the United States. All required documents must be issued by the United States with the exception of official passports. States are required to fulfill the obligations of the Real ID Act within three years and must have the information available to all other states. 

As I read news articles and commentary about the REAL ID Act, I am most troubled by the refusal of commentators to explicitly confront what this Act codified. There is talk about identity theft, the bureaucratic complications of coordination, of training employees and relying on them to authenticate documents, costs, the implications of a national ID, etc., and all of these issues should be talked about.  But this is yet another example that what is politically expedient to discuss is not always what is ethically necessary to discuss. 

To be fair, advocacy groups have raised the Act’s implications for immigrants and there are many.  Unfortunately, most commentaries on immigration fail to place the effect of the REAL ID Act within the larger context of U.S. racial policies. It is important to stress how our use of language defines the terms of the debate, so when we say that someone is “illegal” or an “alien,” we are talking about much more than residency status. To speak of citizenship is to refer to privilege and power, no matter how obliquely. Citizenship is the affirmation of one’s human-ness, that there are certain rights accorded to individuals, that there is a right to exist within a certain space. As well, citizenship is a reminder that rights are given to some and not others. What is clear is that only certain immigrants have to explain their presence here. The REAL ID Act is the state sanctioning of bigotry. The Minutemen vigilantes spread out on the Mexi- can/American border to pre- vent Mexican immigrants into the U.S. is just another manifestation of this. 

The REAL ID Act is about much more than identity theft.  It is about the notion that identity is something that can be authenticated in the first place.  Indeed, if I knew of certain documents that did justice to my whole identity, that validated the authenticity of my experiences as an American, as an Asian, as an Asian American, and my ability to make choices about my life as a woman of color living in the U.S., I might be convinced to get them, if only to stop hearing the same stale commentary about how interesting my childhood must have been, about how interesting I look. 

 But even with my U.S. passport in hand, I still get asked the question of where I am from, where I was born, where my family is from, and people who ask me those questions are never satisfied with answers that reflect the fact that I grew up in the rural Midwest. Documents cannot authenticate my identity to the satisfaction of many of these questioners because to them my very presence in this country will never be authentic. 

Many supporters of the REAL ID Act have responded to criticisms with the assertion that the intent of REAL ID is neither to create a national ID, nor to discriminate against a certain group of people. While this sounds comforting, we all know that, regardless of intent, the result of REAL ID will be a further polarization of races in the U.S., which will benefit some and damage others. 

The REAL ID Act has passed, so let’s take its implications seriously because it is rooted in fear, the result of which is the codification of racial profiling that is shameful. Where is our response to this white vigilance against nonwhites? Where is our outrage?  Why is it so easy to place our outrage in abstract legal conceptualizations of rights, such as privacy, but so difficult to place our outrage in our own experiences?  Why do we continue denying the experiences of others? Where is our ethical vigilance against bigotry? 

My fear at the DMV in Cleveland was based in the idea that I didn’t have the right papers to prove I am who I say I am. The reality is, I may be a “naturalized alien,” but most people see nothing natural about my presence and no piece of ID is going to change that, “real” or not. If we really care about security and safety, then these are the things we should be talking about, rather than honing our fears into tools for erecting even more divisions, leading to even more ignorance.