logo
‘It's terrible': New Jerseyans scramble to get Real IDs before this week's deadline

‘It's terrible': New Jerseyans scramble to get Real IDs before this week's deadline

CNN06-05-2025

When Scott Case realized the REAL ID deadline was coming up this week, he decided to head to his local department of motor vehicles Monday morning.
'I've known about it and I've been putting it off, so some of it's on me,' the frequent business traveler from Collingswood, New Jersey, acknowledged to CNN.
But during the frenzied final weeks before the federal government starts enforcing REAL ID regulations this Wednesday, Case and others are learning getting one at the last minute is a big challenge.
'I feel bad for anybody who doesn't have a passport,' said Case as he left without securing an ID.
Congress passed the REAL ID Act in 2005 as a way to enhance security for identification, requiring new minimum standards for state-issued driver's licenses and IDs. While people without REAL IDs will still be able to drive using current non-compliant licenses and use that identification in other scenarios, REAL IDs will be required for domestic air travel for those without a valid passport or other approved identification.
After years of pushing the deadline for Americans to get a REAL ID, the Department of Homeland Security says it will finally start enforcement May 7.
From Illinois and Washington to Florida and Alabama, Americans across the country are encountering long lines as they scramble to get their REAL IDs before Wednesday.
'It's not gonna happen,' said driver Toe Cooper, from Burlington Township, New Jersey.
At the Motor Vehicle Commission – New Jersey's version of the Department of Motor Vehicles – in Camden, customers packed the small building trying to get a REAL ID.
Cooper tried to walk in to get his Monday because he couldn't get an appointment online.
'I've been on there every night looking. There's nothing on there,' explained Cooper.
'You can get an appointment for anything else, but for REAL ID it said nothing is available,' he added.
In a statement, the state's Motor Vehicle Commission said it has been 'working non-stop to help as many eligible New Jerseyans as possible' obtain a REAL ID.
'Demand is very high right now,' acknowledged commission spokesperson William Connolly.
'And our challenges are not unique to New Jersey – every state in the nation is facing similar pressures as enforcement approaches,' Connolly noted.
The commission said the state is issuing roughly 25,000 REAL IDs per week with 'thousands of new appointments for REAL IDs opening up on our scheduler each morning on a rolling basis.'
New Jersey also has 'dedicated REAL ID days' offering thousands of additional appointments and an expanded mobile unit program for driver services, including the new IDs, he said.
Cooper couldn't get a REAL ID without an appointment, but even for those with appointments, frustration was not always avoidable.
Bruce Beegal, from Brigantine, New Jersey, came to the office with his daughter to get her REAL ID on Monday. But at their appointment they were told they were missing one extra form of identification, and they couldn't complete the process.
'This is a joke,' said Beegal. 'What's going on here, it's terrible.'
Beegal's daughter has a passport, so he's not worried about her boarding a plane, but he said he couldn't believe he might have to do this process again after the REAL ID enforcement deadline passes.
'It sucks,' he said.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump signs measure blocking California's ban on new sales of gas-powered cars

timean hour ago

Trump signs measure blocking California's ban on new sales of gas-powered cars

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump signed a resolution on Thursday that blocks California's first-in-the-nation rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. The state quickly announced it was challenging the move in court, with California's attorney general holding a news conference to discuss the lawsuit before Trump's signing ceremony ended at the White House. The resolution was approved by Congress last month and aims to quash the country's most aggressive attempt to phase out gas-powered cars. Trump also signed measures to overturn state policies curbing tailpipe emissions in certain vehicles and smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks. Trump called California's regulations 'crazy' at a White House ceremony where he signed the resolutions. 'It's been a disaster for this country,' he said. It comes as the Republican president is mired in a clash with California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, over Trump's move to deploy troops to Los Angeles in response to immigration protests. It's the latest in an ongoing battle between the Trump administration and heavily Democratic California over issues including tariffs, the rights of LGBTQ+ youth and funding for electric vehicle chargers. The state is already involved in more than two-dozen lawsuits challenging Trump administration actions, and the state's Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the latest one at a news conference in California. Ten other states, all with Democratic attorneys general, joined the lawsuit filed Thursday. 'The federal government's actions are not only unlawful; they're irrational and wildly partisan,' Bonta said. 'They come at the direct expense of the health and the well-being of our people.' The three resolutions Trump signed will block California's rule phasing out gas-powered cars and end the sale of new ones by 2035. They will also kill rules that phase out the sale of medium- and heavy-duty diesel vehicles and cut tailpipe emissions from trucks. In his remarks at the White House, Trump expressed doubts about the performance and reliability of electric vehicles, though he had some notably positive comments about the company owned by Elon Musk, despite their fractured relationship. 'I like Tesla,' Trump said. In remarks that often meandered away from the subject at hand, Trump used the East Room ceremony to also muse on windmills, which he claimed 'are killing our country,' the prospect of getting electrocuted by an electric-powered boat if it sank and whether he'd risk a shark attack by jumping as the boat went down. 'I'll take electrocution every single day," the president said. When it comes to cars, Trump said he likes combustion engines but for those that prefer otherwise, 'If you want to buy electric, you can buy electric.' 'What this does is it gives us freedom,' said Bill Kent, the owner of Kent Kwik convenience stores. Kent, speaking at the White House, said that the California rules would have forced him to install 'infrastructure that frankly, is extremely expensive and doesn't give you any return.' The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents major car makers, applauded Trump's action. 'Everyone agreed these EV sales mandates were never achievable and wildly unrealistic,' John Bozzella, the group's president and CEO, said in a statement. Newsom, who is considered a likely 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, and California officials contend that what the federal government is doing is illegal and said the state plans to sue. Newsom said Trump's action was a continuation of his 'all-out assault' on California. 'And this time he's destroying our clean air and America's global competitiveness in the process,' Newsom said in a statement. 'We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a President who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big polluters.' The signings come as Trump has pledged to revive American auto manufacturing and boost oil and gas drilling. The move follows other steps the Trump administration has taken to roll back rules that aim to protect air and water and reduce emissions that cause climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday proposed repealing rules that limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas. Dan Becker with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the signing of the resolutions was 'Trump's latest betrayal of democracy.' 'Signing this bill is a flagrant abuse of the law to reward Big Oil and Big Auto corporations at the expense of everyday people's health and their wallets,' Becker said in a statement. California, which has some of the nation's worst air pollution, has been able to seek waivers for decades from the EPA, allowing it to adopt stricter emissions standards than the federal government. In his first term, Trump revoked California's ability to enforce its standards, but Democratic President Joe Biden reinstated it in 2022. Trump has not yet sought to revoke it again. Republicans have long criticized those waivers and earlier this year opted to use the Congressional Review Act, a law aimed at improving congressional oversight of actions by federal agencies, to try to block the rules. That's despite a finding from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, that California's standards cannot legally be blocked using the Congressional Review Act. The Senate parliamentarian agreed with that finding. California, which makes up roughly 11% of the U.S. car market, has significant power to sway trends in the auto industry. About a dozen states signed on to adopt California's rule phasing out the sale of new gas-powered cars.

Democrats criticize latest effort by Congress to regulate college sports as setback for athletes

timean hour ago

Democrats criticize latest effort by Congress to regulate college sports as setback for athletes

WASHINGTON -- The latest effort by Congress to regulate college sports generated predictable partisan outrage on Thursday, with Democrats saying Republican-led draft legislation would claw back freedoms won by athletes through years of litigation against the NCAA. Three House committees are considering legislation that would create a national standard for name, image and likeness payments to athletes and protect the NCAA against future lawsuits. Last week, a federal judge approved a $2.8 billion settlement that will lead to schools paying athletes directly, and NCAA President Charlie Baker said now that his organization is implementing those major changes, Congress needs to step in and stabilize college sports. Baker said he supports the draft legislation that was the subject of Thursday's hearing by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, but there was little indication that any bill advanced by the House would generate enough Democratic support to surpass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. 'I'm deeply disappointed for the second year in a row, Republicans on this committee are advancing a partisan college sports bill that protects the power brokers of college athletics at the expense of the athletes themselves,' said Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass. Trahan noted that if the NCAA or conferences establish unfair rules, athletes can challenge them in court, with the settlement of the House v. NCAA antitrust case the latest example of athletes winning rights that they had been denied historically. 'This bill rewrites that process to guarantee the people in power always win, and the athletes who fuel this multibillion-dollar industry always lose,' said Trahan, who played volleyball at Georgetown. The NCAA argues that it needs a limited antitrust exemption in order to set its own rules and preserve a college sports system that provides billions of dollars in scholarships and helps train future U.S. Olympians. Several athletes are suing the NCAA over its rule that athletes are only eligible to play four seasons in a five-year period, and on Tuesday, a group of female athletes filed an appeal of the House settlement, saying it discriminated against women in violation of federal law. On the Senate side, a bipartisan group including Republican Ted Cruz of Texas has been negotiating a college sports reform bill for months, but those talks are moving more slowly than Cruz had hoped at the beginning of this Congress. The draft bill in the House would create a national standard for NIL, overriding the state laws that critics say have led to a chaotic recruiting environment. That, too, was criticized by Democrats and by their key witness at the hearing, Ramogi Huma, executive director of the National College Players Association. Huma argued that the NCAA wants to get rid of booster-funded NIL collectives that another witness, Southeastern Conference associate commissioner William King, characterized as 'fake NIL' or 'pay for play.' Instead, Huma said the collectives are examples of the free market at work, noting that before players won NIL rights through a court case, boosters could only donate to athletic departments. Tom McMillen, a former Democratic congressman who played in the NBA after an All-America basketball career at Maryland, took a dim view of the bill's prospects. 'I think they're trying to come up with something and pull in some Democrats. I just don't know if that's going to succeed or not,' said McMillen, who for several years led an association of Division I athletic directors. 'There's a real philosophical divide, so that's the hard part. It's hard to bridge. And there's a zillion other issues.' The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., said the draft legislation already had some bipartisan support and he was open to changes that would get more Democrats on board. 'I will consider some of the suggestions, the legitimate suggestions that were made,' Bilirakis said, 'and I will be happy to talk to lawmakers that truly want to get a big bill across the finish line.'

Low-income, first-generation students could lose vital college resource under Trump's budget cuts
Low-income, first-generation students could lose vital college resource under Trump's budget cuts

San Francisco Chronicle​

timean hour ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

Low-income, first-generation students could lose vital college resource under Trump's budget cuts

Mission High School graduating senior Mariana Aguilar, the daughter of working-class Colombian immigrants, had always wanted to make her parents proud by becoming one of the first in their family to go to college. But she doesn't know whether she'd have been able to earn a spot at San Jose State University — where she'll enroll with a full scholarship this fall –—without the help of her college access counselor, Alexis Lopez. 'Alexis just changed my life,' Aguilar said last week after she celebrated alongside 44 other high school seniors from low-income families who participated in a program that provides intensive coaching for disadvantaged teens to become first-generation college students. But hers might be the last class to benefit from Upward Bound. The Trump administration's proposed 2026 budget slashes all $1.2 billion for a suite of college access programs for low-income, first-generation college students called TRIO, which includes Upward Bound. Congress is still negotiating the budget, which the Senate has not yet passed. The budget would also cut from social safety nets like Medicaid and the federal food stamps program while spending on border security, deportations and tax cuts. The Trump administration's budget document, submitted May 2 by White House budget director, Russell Vought, states college access programs are 'a relic of the past' and that it's 'engaging in woke ideology with federal taxpayer subsidies.' 'Today, the pendulum has swung and access to college is not the obstacle it was for students of limited means,' stated Vought's budget document. It added that colleges and universities 'should be using their own resources' to recruit students. The TRIO programs were created in the 1960s as part of a federal 'war on poverty.' While inequality in college attainment has slightly decreased since 1970, it persists, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by Pell Institute researchers. In 2022, students from families in the lowest-earning quarter were almost four times less likely to earn a bachelor's degree by age 24 than those from the highest-earning quarter, according to the analysis. A Pew Research Center report on 2019 data also found that children of college-educated parents are far more likely to graduate from college. About 70% of adults aged 22 to 59 with at least one parent who has a bachelor's degree or more have obtained a bachelor's degree as well, compared to only 26% of their peers who do not have a college-educated parent. In San Francisco, the nonprofit Japanese Community Youth Council receives $2.6 million annually to pay for about 25 staff who help 3,000-odd students at 13 SFUSD schools a year through Upward Bound and another TRIO program, Talent Search, that casts a wider net. Federal rules stipulate that two-thirds of those students must come from families that make less than 150% of the federal poverty level, about $48,000 for a family of four. 'The outcome of the elimination of these programs is the already staggering racial wealth gap in this country is going to continue to widen,' said the nonprofit's executive director, Jon Osaki. 'Those who have less access, less means, to pursue higher education, are going to fall further behind in this country.' The programs have historically had bipartisan support. Both Republicans and Democrats voiced support at recent congressional hearings, including Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who chairs the Senate appropriations committee. 'I have seen the lives of countless first-generation and low income students … who often face barriers to accessing a college education changed by the TRIO program,' Collins said, questioning why Trump's budget eliminated it. Education secretary Linda McMahon said in response that the department had no way to hold the program administrators accountable based on whether they were effective or not. Collins said the government could reform the programs, not abolish them. Kimberly Jones, president of the Washington-based nonprofit Council for Opportunity in Education that has been active in lobbying Congress to keep funding TRIO, said that the programs are effective. Upward Bound students are more than twice as likely to earn a bachelor's degree by age 24 than students from the lowest earning quarter of families, according to the council. 'These tools are invaluable as many first-generation college students go on to become the first homeowners in their families, the first to work in 'white-collar' industries, and many other firsts throughout their lifetimes,' Jones said. Aguilar, the Mission High School graduating senior, said that her family was forced to move to the East Bay in her junior year when her mom, who works as a nanny, could no longer afford to live in San Francisco. Thrust into a new school in a new city where she knew no one, she fell into a severe depression, she said. Her mom transferred her back to Mission High midway through junior year, where Lopez, the adviser, quickly connected with her. Lopez arranged for Aguilar to go on a field trip to San Jose State University. They decided that the school and its big business program would be perfect for her. Lopez helped her apply for scholarships that would give her a full ride. 'Without her, I don't know what I'd be doing now,' she said. Balboa High School graduating senior Caryn Dea, the child of blue-collar Chinese immigrants, said that she's always wanted to go to college but didn't know how. Her parents, who didn't attend college, worked long hours. 'Throughout applying for college, I was scared,' Dea said. Her dream school, which she visited through an Upward Bound trip to Southern California colleges, was UCLA. 'But I found myself thinking I wouldn't get in anywhere.' Her Upward Bound adviser, Karen Coreas Diaz, frequently reassured her, saying, 'You got this,' Dea remembered, and helped her with her essays. 'She's been the best support system I've had,' Dea said. She will be attending UCLA, where she hopes to study human biology or a healthcare field. Coreas Diaz said that mentoring the Upward Bound students felt like healing her own 'inner child.' The child of Salvadoran immigrants who didn't go to college, Coreas Diaz said she struggled in high school as well, eventually enrolling in community college because her grades weren't good enough before ultimately transferring to UC Berkeley. But unlike her students, she didn't have a mentor. 'Supporting you felt like taking care of a younger version of myself,' Coreas Diaz said to her students during a tearful speech at the graduation ceremony. Unlike students with wealthy parents, her students cannot afford pricey private college counseling. Her work, she said, gives them the same advantages: help with essays, deadlines and college application. Jackie Lam, associate director of JCYC's Upward Bound program, said students with low-income parents who didn't attend college often lack access to crucial information. They may not be aware, for example, that they can apply to Stanford University and possibly get a full ride if their parents make less than six figures, he said. More than 80% of the high schoolers in JCYC's program who graduate high school enrolled in college every year, Lam said, with the exception of 2020, when they came close. 'Being a teenager is hard because you feel lost,' said Halima Cherif, a graduating senior from San Francisco International High School who participated in Upward Bound. She credited her adviser, Atokena Abe, with helping her get into her dream college, UC Berkeley, where she hopes to study biology or psychology. 'When students aren't guided, most won't have the ability or courage to go to college, work hard and have their dreams and goals,' she said. 'And more importantly, to get a job to help themselves and contribute to the people of this country.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store