The Real ID deadline is here. What you need to board your next flight
The long-awaited Real ID deadline is finally here but those without the federal identification may still be able to board their flights.
Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said Tuesday that fliers without their Real IDs will "have an extra step" but will ultimately be permitted to fly for now.
While things have reportedly been going smoothly at airports throughout this morning, passengers are still encouraged to pad their travel time in case of delays.
Here's what you need to know:
The Real ID Act was passed by Congress in 2005 to establish minimum security standards for state-issued identification cards and driver's licenses. It's designed to help prevent fraudulent identification, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The Real ID is not mandatory for Pennsylvania residents but you will now need federal identification to board domestic flights and enter federal facilities.
There's still plenty of time to get a Real ID in Pennsylvania as the state will continue processing applications for the foreseeable future.
PennDOT is also holding another Real ID day on May 12 to process as many applications as possible.
You will need to produce several other pieces of identification, including proof of citizenship, proof of residency and valid Social Security Number when applying for a Real ID.
A checklist for all of the documentation required to obtain a Real ID is available on the PennDOT website.
When you apply for the Real ID, you must pay the license renewal fee in addition to $30 for the Real ID. It costs $39.50 to renew a four-year non-commercial license and $42.50 for a photo ID, according to PennDOT.
You'll then be issued a Real ID with an additional four years added onto the expiration date that was listed on your drivers license.
Lacey Latch is the development reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times and The Intelligencer. She can be reached at LLatch@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Real ID deadline is here. What to know before heading to the airport
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
37 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Governments scramble to understand Trump's latest travel ban before it takes effect Monday
Advertisement There will also be heightened restrictions on visitors from seven other countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. North Korea and Syria, which were on the banned list in the first Trump administration, were spared this time. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up While many of the listed countries send few people to the United States, Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela had been major sources of immigration in recent years. A vendor waits for customers in front of the former US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, June 5, 2025. Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press Trump tied the new ban to Sunday's terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. The suspect, who is accused of turning a makeshift flamethrower on a group of people, is from Egypt, which is not on Trump's restricted list. The Department of Homeland Security says he overstayed a tourist visa. Advertisement The travel ban results from a Jan. 20 executive order Trump issued requiring government agencies to compile a report on 'hostile attitudes' toward the U.S. and whether entry from certain countries represented a national security risk. Visa overstays Trump said some countries had 'deficient' screening for passports and other public documents or have historically refused to take back their own citizens. He relied extensively on an annual Homeland Security report of people who remain in the U.S. after their visas expired. Measuring overstay rates has challenged experts for decades, but the government has made a limited attempt annually since 2016. Trump's proclamation cites overstay rates for eight of the 12 banned countries. While Trump's list captures many of the most egregious offenders, it omits others. Djibouti, for example, had a 23..9% overstay rate among business visitors and tourists in the 12-month period through September 2023, higher than seven countries on the banned list and six countries on the restricted list. The findings are 'based on sketchy data and a misguided concept of collective punishment,' said Doug Rand, a former Biden administration official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Decision is a blow to Venezuelans Venezuela's government had already warned its citizens against traveling to the U.S. A video released last week by the foreign ministry told Venezuelans the U.S. 'is a dangerous country where human rights of immigrants are nonexistent.' 'If you are thinking about traveling, cancel your plans immediately,' it urged. But the administration's decision is a significant blow to Venezuelans, who were already limited in their U.S. travel plans since the governments broke off diplomatic relations in 2019. The announcement stunned the family of María Aldana, who has long worked multiple jobs in Caracas to support her brother's dream to study engineering in the U.S. The family has spent more than $6,000 to finance his goals. Advertisement Aldana, 24, said her distraught brother, who enrolled at a Southern California university two years ago, called the family crying. 'We did it all legally,' Aldana said. The African Union Commission, meanwhile, appealed to the United States to reconsider 'in a manner that is balanced, evidence-based, and reflective of the long-standing partnership between the United States and Africa.' International aid groups and refugee resettlement organizations were harsher: 'This latest proclamation is an attempt to further eviscerate lawful immigration pathways under the false guise of national security,' said Sarah Mehta, the American Civil Liberties Union's deputy director of policy and government affairs for immigration. Stephen Yale-Loehr, a retired Cornell University Law School professor and expert in immigration law, said the ban is likely to withstand legal challenges, noting the Supreme Court eventually allowed a ban to take effect in Trump's first term. Trump's invocation this week of national security, along with exceptions for green-card holders, athletes and others, could also help the ban stand up in court. Shock in Iran The news came as a shock to many in Iran despite the decades of enmity between the two countries. Reports suggest thousands of university students each year travel to America to study, and others have extended families living in America, some of whom fled after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the shah. 'My elder daughter got a bachelor's degree from a top Iranian university and planned to continue in the U.S., but now she is badly distressed,' Nasrin Lajvardi said. Tensions also remain high because negotiations over Iran's nuclear program have yet to reach any agreement, but Tehran resident Mehri Soltani offered rare support for Trump's decision. Advertisement 'Those who have family members in the U.S., it's their right to go, but a bunch of bad people and terrorists and murderers want to go there as well,' he said. 'America has to cancel it' Outside the former U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, a Taliban guard expressed his disappointment. 'America has to cancel it,' Ilias Kakal said. A woman shops in a market in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, June 5, 2025. Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press The Afghanistan travel ban was announced as forms of support for Afghans who worked with the U.S. are being steadily eroded under the Trump administration. A refugee program has been suspended, and there is no funding to help them leave Afghanistan or resettle in the U.S., although a ban exception was made for people with special immigrant visas, a program created to help those in danger because they worked with the U.S. during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In addition, many people who 'served shoulder-to-shoulder' with the U.S did not qualify for the special visa program, according to No One Left Behind, a group that has advocated for Afghans who worked with the U.S. Khalid Khan, an Afghan refugee now living in Pakistan, said he worked for the U.S. military for eight years. 'I feel abandoned,' Khan said. 'So long as Trump is there, we are nowhere.' Since the Taliban took over the country in 2021, only Afghans with foreign passports or green cards were able to travel to the United States with any ease, travel agents said. First term ban During his first term, Trump issued an executive order banning travel to the U.S. by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries. It was one of the most chaotic and confusing moments of his young presidency. Advertisement The order was retooled amid legal challenges, until a version was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. Trump and others have defended the initial ban on national security grounds, arguing it was aimed at protecting the country and not founded on anti-Muslim bias. However, the president had called for an explicit ban on Muslims during his first campaign for the White House. Amiri reported from the United Nations. Associated Press writers Regina Garcia Cano, Rebecca Santana, Jon Gambrell, Ellen Knickmeyer, Omar Farouk, Nasser Karimi, Elliot Spagat, Elena Becatoros and Danica Coto contributed to this report.
The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
Governments scramble to understand Trump's latest travel ban before it takes effect Monday
WASHINGTON (AP) — Governments of 12 countries whose citizens will be banned from visiting the United States beginning next week scrambled Thursday to understand President Donald Trump's latest move to resurrect a hallmark policy of his first term. The ban that Trump announced Wednesday takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, a cushion that may avoid the chaos that unfolded at airports nationwide when a similar measure took effect with virtually no notice in 2017. Trump, who signaled plans for a new ban upon taking office again in January, appears to be on firmer ground this time after the Supreme Court sided with him. Some of the 12 countries also appeared on the list of banned countries in the Republican president's first term. The new ban targets Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. There will also be heightened restrictions on visitors from seven other countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. North Korea and Syria, which were on the banned list in the first Trump administration, were spared this time. Trump tied the new ban to Sunday's terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. The suspect, who is accused of turning a makeshift flamethrower on a group of people, is from Egypt, which is not on Trump's restricted list. The Department of Homeland Security says he overstayed a tourist visa. The travel ban results from a Jan. 20 executive order Trump issued requiring the departments of State and Homeland Security and the director of national intelligence to compile a report on 'hostile attitudes' toward the U.S. and whether entry from certain countries represented a national security risk. Trump said some countries had 'deficient' screening for passports and other public documents or have historically refused to take back their own citizens. His findings rely extensively on an annual Homeland Security report of visa overstays of tourists, business visitors and students who arrive by air and sea, singling out countries with high percentages of those remaining after their visas expired. Measuring overstay rates has challenged experts for decades, but the government has made a limited attempt annually since 2016. Trump's proclamation cites overstay rates for eight of the 12 banned countries. While Trump's list captures many of the most egregious offenders, it omits others. Djibouti, for example, had a 23..9% overstay rate among business visitors and tourists in the 12-month period through September 2023, higher than seven countries on the banned list and six countries on the restricted list. The findings are 'based on sketchy data and a misguided concept of collective punishment,' said Doug Rand, a former Biden administration official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Venezuela's interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, said being in the United States is a 'great risk.' The decision is a significant blow to Venezuelans, who were already limited in their U.S. travel plans since the governments broke off diplomatic relations in 2019. The announcement stunned the family of Venezuelan María Aldana, who has long worked multiple jobs in Caracas to support her brother's dream to study engineering in the U.S. The family has spent more than $6,000 to finance his goals. Aldana, 24, said her distraught brother, who enrolled at a Southern California university two years ago, called the family crying. 'We did it all legally,' Aldana said. The African Union Commission, meanwhile, appealed to the United States to reconsider 'in a manner that is balanced, evidence-based, and reflective of the long-standing partnership between the United States and Africa.' International aid groups and refugee resettlement organizations took a harsher tone: 'This latest proclamation is an attempt to further eviscerate lawful immigration pathways under the false guise of national security,' said Sarah Mehta, the American Civil Liberties Union's deputy director of policy and government affairs for immigration. A travel agent in Somalia said the policy threatens the travel and service industry. 'The United States is home to the largest Somali diaspora in the world, and for years it has been one of our most active and reliable destinations,' said Bashir Farah Ali, manager of Kofi Express Travel Services. The news came as a shock to many in Iran despite the decades of enmity between the two countries. Reports suggest thousands of university students each year travel to America to study, and others have extended families living in America, some of whom fled after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the shah. 'My elder daughter got a bachelor's degree from a top Iranian university and planned to continue in the U.S., but now she is badly distressed,' Nasrin Lajvardi said. Tensions also remain high because negotiations over Iran's nuclear program have yet to reach any agreement, but Tehran resident Mehri Soltani offered rare support for Trump's decision. 'Those who have family members in the U.S., it's their right to go, but a bunch of bad people and terrorists and murderers want to go there as well,' he said. Outside the former U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, a Taliban guard expressed his disappointment. 'America has to cancel it,' Ilias Kakal said. In Afghanistan's capital, travel agents pointed out the ban would have little practical effect as Afghan passport holders have faced problems for years getting U.S. visas. Since the Taliban took over the country in 2021, only Afghans with foreign passports or green cards were able to travel to the United States with any ease, they said, while even those applying for special visas due to their work with U.S. forces in Afghanistan in previous years were facing problems. During his first term, Trump issued an executive order banning travel to the U.S. by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries. It was one of the most chaotic and confusing moments of his young presidency. The order, often referred to as the 'Muslim ban,' was retooled amid legal challenges, until a version was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. Trump and others have defended the initial ban on national security grounds, arguing it was aimed at protecting the country and not founded on anti-Muslim bias. However, the president had called for an explicit ban on Muslims during his first campaign for the White House. ___ Follow the AP's coverage of President Donald Trump at ___ Amiri reported from the United Nations. Associated Press writers Regina Garcia Cano, Rebecca Santana, Jon Gambrell, Ellen Knickmeyer, Omar Farouk, Nasser Karimi, Elliot Spagat, Elena Becatoros and Danica Coto contributed to this report.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
What we know about the countries on Trump's travel ban list, and how many people will be impacted
A sweeping new travel ban on citizens from a dozen nations was announced by the White House on Wednesday, reviving a defining effort from the first Trump administration to crack down on entries from specific countries. Trump said in a video posted Wednesday that new countries could be added to the travel ban as 'threats emerge around the world.' The 12 countries targeted – plus seven more, which face partial restrictions – are mostly nations with frosty, adversarial or outwardly antagonistic relations with Washington. Many are either failed states or in the throes of repressive rule, and some are governed by groups that took control after years of US involvement in their affairs. For all but four of the 19 countries hit with restrictions, the administration pointed to high rates of their nationals overstaying their visas after entering the US. Visa overstays have received renewed scrutiny since the Boulder, Colorado, attack last weekend against a group campaigning in solidarity with the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. The suspect in that attack was originally from Egypt, which was not on Wednesday's travel ban list. He obtained a two-year work authorization that expired in March, a Homeland Security (DHS) official said. Seven countries were included because the administration deemed they pose a 'high level of risk' to the US: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. The travel ban does not target existing visa or green card holders, and it also features carve-outs for some visa categories and for people whose entry serves US interests. Its impact will vary greatly from country to country; some nations only receive a few hundred nonimmigrant visas per year, while others have seen hundreds of thousands of people enter the US in the past decade. Travel to the US has been fully restricted for citizens from Chad, Sudan, Libya, Eritrea, the Republic of Congo, Somalia and Equatorial Guinea. Meanwhile, a partial restriction has been imposed on nationals from Burundi, Togo and Sierra Leone. The US does not issue a high number of visas to most of those countries – only a few hundred or a few thousand people per year were granted immigrant and nonimmigrant visas in 2023, according to State Department data. The White House said Somalia had been identified as a 'terrorist safe haven,' led by a government that lacks 'command and control of its territory.' This year, the US carried out airstrikes in Somalia against ISIS and affiliated targets, in a joint counterterrorism effort with the nation. Relations with Sudan have soured; last month, the Trump administration said it would impose sanctions on the military-led Sudanese government after finding that it used chemical weapons last year during its ongoing war with a rival military faction. The US has been unable to broker a ceasefire to end the conflict that has raged on for two years, leaving tens of thousands dead. The White House has also had a frosty relationship with Chad, which demanded the removal of American troops from its territory last year, as well as with Eritrea, whose military the Biden administration accused in 2023 of committing war crimes during a conflict in northern Ethiopia. Similar reprimands have been made by the US State Department against state and non-state actors in Libya, which it accused of committing crimes against humanity. Chad had one of the highest rates of visa overstays of any country included in the ban; around half of the people admitted to the US from the central African nation overstayed their visa in the 2023 financial year, according to the DHS, though the numbers of Chadians granted such visas was relatively small. The White House said Wednesday that Chad's overstay rate is 'unacceptable and indicates a blatant disregard for U.S. immigration laws.' The African Union Commission said in a Thursday statement it was 'concerned' about the impact of bans 'on people-to-people ties, educational exchange, commercial engagement, and the broader diplomatic relations that have been carefully nurtured over decades.' 'While recognising the sovereign right of all nations to protect their borders and ensure the security of their citizens, the African Union Commission respectfully appeals to the United States to exercise this right in a manner that is balanced, evidence-based, and reflective of the long-standing partnership between the United States and Africa,' its statement read. The ban targeted three Middle Eastern adversaries with which the US has limited or no diplomatic ties. The US does not formally recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's official government. The militant group reclaimed power in 2021 amid a chaotic and deadly withdrawal of US forces under the Biden administration. Afghans who helped the US government during Washington's two-decade involvement in the country are exempt from the ban; they fall under a Special Immigrant Visa program that has allocated more than 50,000 visas since 2009. The Trump administration targeted Yemen's Houthi rebels with airstrikes for several weeks earlier this year, in response to the group attacking ships and disrupting trade routes in the Red Sea. The Houthis control much of western Yemen, including the capital Sanaa. Haiti has been in the grips of violent unrest for years. Gangs control at least 85% of its capital, Port-au-Prince, and have launched attacks in the country's central region in recent years. The violence has left more than one million Haitians internally displaced. Two other Latin American nations – Cuba and Venezuela – also face restrictions, though Trump stopped short of implementing a full ban. The move comes a week after the Supreme Court allowed Trump's administration to suspend a Biden-era humanitarian parole program that let half a million people from the two countries, plus Nicaragua, temporarily live and work in the US each year. Trump in March revoked temporary humanitarian parole for about 300,000 Cubans, amid a record number of arrivals of migrants from the Caribbean island. Of all the countries targeted, the new restrictions may impact Venezuelans the most. More than 55,000 people from Venezuela received nonimmigrant visas to enter the US in 2023, and nearly 800,000 Venezuelans in total were granted such visas over the preceding decade, according to the State Department. The White House said both Laos and Myanmar, also known as Burma, have failed to co-operate with the US over the return of their nationals. Myanmar's ruling military junta has spent the past four years waging a brutal civil war across the Southeast Asian country, sending columns of troops on bloody rampages, torching and bombing villages, massacring residents, jailing opponents and forcing young men and women to join the army. The junta is headed by a widely reviled army chief who overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and installed himself as leader, and the nation was thrown into further turmoil by a devastating earthquake in March. The US and Laos meanwhile have a complicated history, hampered by the US bombing of the country during its war in Vietnam. But relations have improved dramatically this century, and the US-Laos partnership is one of the most stable and productive of all 19 countries targeted by Wednesday's ban. Egypt was spared inclusion in the travel ban, even though the restrictions were expedited after an Egyptian national was charged with attempted murder after the Molotov cocktail attack in Boulder, Colorado. Egypt has long been a key US partner in the Middle East. Relations between Cairo and Washington date back to 1922, when Egypt gained independence from the United Kingdom, and have continued ever since. According to the US embassy in Egypt, some 450 Egyptians travel to the United States annually on professional and academic exchange programs. The Arab nation has also historically been the second biggest recipient of US military aid, following Israel. Since 1978, the US has contributed more than $50 billion in military assistance to Egypt, according to the American embassy, though some of this aid has been occasionally withheld on account of the country's human rights record. 'Egypt is a valued U.S. partner in counterterrorism, anti-trafficking, and regional security operations, which advance both U.S. and Egyptian security,' the US embassy said in 2023. CNN's Helen Regan contributed to this report.
