The Brief

The federal government says it will finally begin enforcing the national Real ID law starting on May 7 — for real this time, after nearly two decades of delays.

For many people, this matters most for boarding domestic flights. Non-Real ID driver's licenses and identification cards won't get you through security at U.S. airports when the law is fully enforced.

But are the millions of daily U.S. airline passengers — as well as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials who screen them — ready for the changeover?

In recent years, the federal government has set and delayed other deadlines for Real ID enforcement after realizing that not enough Americans would be ready with compliant documents, says Kyle Potter, executive editor of the travel website Thrifty Traveler.

"So they extend [the deadline] again and they push it out another two or three years, but then there's no more urgency," he said. "So this problem just keeps happening and happening and happening."

As the latest Real ID deadline approaches in less than a month, here's what you need to know.

What's happening on May 7?

On that date, federal agencies including the TSA say they will accept only state-issued driver's licenses and IDs that meet Real ID requirements, which include having applicants provide certain identifying information such as Social Security numbers.

This doesn't mean that you need a Real ID to board a domestic flight. You can still use a passport or passport card, an enhanced driver's license issued by some states, a permanent resident card or one of many other forms of ID allowed by the TSA. (Children under 18 don't need any identification to fly within the United States.)

This driver's license design is meant to comply with federal Real ID requirements. The star in the top-right corner indicates that it's a Real ID.

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But it does mean that state-issued driver's licenses that aren't Real ID-compliant will no longer be accepted.

According to TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein, 81% of current U.S. travelers already use a Real ID license or an approved alternative form of identification, such as a passport.

Will I get turned away at the airport if I don't have a Real ID?

It's still unclear whether travelers carrying a non-Real ID license will be sent packing — or just face additional scrutiny by law enforcement.

In an FAQ on its website, the Department of Homeland Security says travelers without "a REAL ID-compliant license or acceptable alternative beginning May 7, 2025, will not be permitted through the security checkpoint."

But the TSA has said it plans to begin "phased enforcement" on May 7, though it hasn't shared details about what that means. In a federal rule published this year, the agency said it could take a "phased approach" to enforcement over two years, with the ability to issue warnings to people without Real IDs to avoid "a serious risk of operational disruption, negative public impact, and potential security vulnerabilities."

Another TSA spokesperson told member station KUT that security officers may subject travelers with non-Real ID licenses to extra screening measures.

Potter, the travel editor, said he thinks the TSA and the federal government are "trying to find a middle ground of telling people that Real ID is happening but giving them some wiggle room to avoid the kinds of mass disruptions that nobody wants in air travel."

How do I get a Real ID?

First, check to see whether you've got a Real ID already. Your driver's license or ID card is compliant with the new rules if it has one of these star markings in one of its top corners.

Otherwise, you should check with the motor vehicle agency in your state to find out how to get a Real ID.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, you'll need to provide documentation showing your full legal name, date of birth, Social Security number and lawful status, as well as two proofs of address.

But federal officials say to double-check with your state to find out exactly what documents are necessary and whether your state goes beyond the minimum federal Real ID requirements.

The fast-approaching deadline has led to a surge of applications at state DMVs from Oregon to Pennsylvania as people rush to get compliant licenses.

Why is all this happening, anyway?

The Real ID Act was signed into law in 2005 after the 9/11 Commission warned that it was too easy to obtain a driver's license in the United States.

But there have been hurdles in getting all 50 states and U.S. territories to adopt the new requirements and begin issuing Real IDs, something the federal government estimated in 2007 would cost states $11 billion to implement. More recently, issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic have caused additional delays.

It wasn't until 2020 — 15 years after the Real ID Act became law — that all 50 states became compliant with its licensing requirements.

In addition to airports, people entering certain other federal facilities and nuclear power plants will also be required to present a Real ID, the Department of Homeland Security, said.

Copyright 2025 NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a Mississippi law that allows election officials to count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received up to five days after it.

The ruling is a loss for the Republican Party, which brought the case, ahead of this year's midterm elections.

Eighteen states and territories, including Mississippi, have such mail ballot grace periods. Most of the states are Democratic-led, including California, Illinois and New York. A dozen additional states have grace periods for ballots returning from overseas, like from military members.

The court's ruling was 5-4, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett authoring the opinion, joined in the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's liberal wing of Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

"[T]he election-day statutes require the electorate's choice to be made on election day. That occurs so long as election day is the deadline for individuals to vote—as it is in Mississippi," Barrett wrote. "But the election-day statutes do not set a deadline for ballot receipt, so they do not prevent Mississippi from counting ballots postmarked before election day yet received afterward."

Justice Samuel Alito authored the dissent, writing in part that the "majority's holding spawns a slurry of troubling election-law questions and risks further undermining Americans' confidence in election integrity."

How the battle over grace periods ended up at the Supreme Court

These grace periods have historically provided voters time to get their absentee ballots to officials in case there are any issues with the Postal Service — as well as any other unforeseen issues, such as weather events.

But Republicans have been fighting these grace periods in recent years — an effort led by President Trump.

Ahead of the 2024 election, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign filed legal challenges — including one against Mississippi's law — alleging that these grace periods violate the Constitution. They argued that Congress sets the end of an election, not states.

At the time, many of the lawsuits were dismissed by judges across the country, but the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Republicans, setting up the Supreme Court case.

Trump also signed an executive order last year — which was quickly blocked by lower courts — that required that all votes be received by Election Day during federal elections.

Many state officials, particularly in Democratic-run states with universal mail-in ballot programs, raised concerns about such a requirement.

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said in a statement last year that more than 250,000 ballots that had been postmarked on time arrived after Election Day during the 2024 election.

"Had this rule been in effect," he said, "those voices would have been silenced, especially in rural areas where mail delivery can take longer."
Copyright 2026 NPR

The Supreme Court on Thursday restricted the use of a relatively new law enforcement technique that allows police to tap into giant tech-firm databases to see who was near the scene of a crime.

Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice Elena Kagan said that the technique, known as geofencing, violates the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches.

A "geofence warrant" entails drawing a virtual fence around a geographic area where a crime was committed. The government can then seek a warrant to require a tech company to search its data to identify any of its users who were within the geofence at the time of the crime.

This case stems from a robbery in the suburbs of Richmond, Va. A man stole $195,000 from a bank, but after two months, the case had gone cold. That is, until detectives served a warrant on Google, asking for the location information of cellphone users in and around the bank for the hour before and after the crime was committed.

Complying with the warrant, Google initially found the names of 19 people who were in or near the bank, but Google pushed back, ultimately providing the police with the names of just three people whose location data showed they were at the bank. When police went to the home of one of them, they found a pistol matching one seen on security camera footage of the robbery and nearly $100,000 in cash. That man, Okello Chatrie, later confessed and was convicted of the crime.

His attorneys argued in filings to the court that geofence searches violate the Fourth Amendment because they allow the government "to search first and develop suspicions later." The geofence warrants in this case directed Google to search millions of users' location histories, meaning that millions of people were subjected to a search despite never having done anything suspicious.

But the government argued in its filings that because people can choose not to give companies like Google their location data, that data is not constitutionally protected.
Copyright 2026 NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a 91-year-old precedent that has prevented presidents from removing members of independent agencies at will. The decision represents a significant win for the Trump administration and a major expansion of the president's control over parts of the government once seen as a check on his powers.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court found that President Trump's March 2025 firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without cause was lawful.

Since its creation of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1914, Congress has held that commissioners can only be fired for "inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office." Slaughter was presented with no such reason for her removal, only told her "continued service on the FTC is inconsistent with [the Trump] Administration's priorities."

Last summer, a lower court found her firing was unlawful, citing a 1935 landmark decision known as Humphrey's Executor, a case prompted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's attempted firing of an FTC commissioner over ideological disagreements. The court unanimously held that while the president has the power to remove purely executive officers for any reason, that unlimited power does not extend to agencies like the FTC, whose duties, the court found, "are neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative."

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter was appointed in 2018 to fill a Democratic seat on the Federal Trade Commission. She was fired by the Trump administration in 2024.

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Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: "Although it is up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the President would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work. Subordinates who exercise the President's power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people."

The three liberal justices dissented.

The independence of the Federal Reserve remains intact — for now. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, can remain in her job until litigation is resolved in the lower courts.

A final blow to a 91-year-old precedent

Thursday's decision marks a final blow to Humphrey's Executor.

"If anything more is left of Humphrey's, the Court overrules it," Robert wrote in the majority opinion.

During Trump's first term, the Supreme Court chipped away at the precedent when it let Trump fire the head of another independent agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

In that case, the Supreme Court held that the firing was permissible because the CFPB is run by a single director rather than a multimember board. Chief Justice John Roberts described Humphrey's Executor as applying only to multimember agencies "that do not wield substantial executive power."

Now with this latest decision, the conservative majority has found reason to give the president power over multimember agencies, too.

The ruling essentially turns FTC commissioners into at-will employees, who serve at the pleasure of the president. It also effectively ends Congress' requirement that the FTC be bipartisan, so that no one party has too much sway.

Congress dictated that no one political party can hold more than three seats on the five-member commission, recognizing the vast influence the FTC has over the lives of everyday Americans.

The agency's commissioners are antitrust experts, uniquely positioned to keep watch over all kinds of companies — big tech companies, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers and media companies — ensuring their practices aren't harming regular people.

Now, going forward, there's nothing to stop any president from removing commissioners from the opposing party and leaving the seats vacant, which is what Trump has done.

After his firing of two Democratic FTC commissioners last year, the only remaining commissioners are Republicans.

The independence of a multitude of other agencies also in doubt

The ruling also throws into question the protections afforded to members of a multitude of other federal agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where Trump has also fired Democratic members.

Like the FTC, those agencies play important roles in the daily lives of Americans, protecting people from discrimination and abuse on the job and unsafe products, including toys.

Congress created those agencies and many others following the Supreme Court's decision in Humphrey's Executor, assuming that they would operate with some degree of independence from the White House.

In an interview last fall with NPR, Slaughter said it was vital for the Supreme Court to preserve its independence.

"Independence allows the decision-making that is done by these boards and commissions to be on the merits, about the facts, and about protecting the interests of the American people," she said. "That is what Americans deserve from their government."

James M. Burnham, an attorney who has served in both Trump administrations, offered the counter view, arguing that Congress' limits on the president's removal powers have been unconstitutional from the beginning.

"I don't think there is such a thing as an independent agency because everything has to be in one of the three branches of government," he argued. "I don't think they've ever been independent."
Copyright 2026 NPR

The unauthorized practice of immigration law, known as notario fraud among Spanish speakers in the U.S., is a longstanding issue in immigrant communities.

But amid the Trump administration’s ongoing mass deportation effort, immigrants rights groups say heightened levels of fear and confusion are pushing more people into the hands of fraudsters. In their desperation for help, immigrants are spending thousands of dollars, only to be left with substandard assistance, meritless applications or no legal work at all.

Public Counsel, a nonprofit pro bono law firm headquartered in Los Angeles, recently published a white paper on the issue, geared at fellow immigration advocates and consumer advocates.

In it, the nonprofit underscores that an error on a case can lead to devastating results for immigrants and their families. These can range from the loss of immigration status, deportation, a permanent bar from entering the U.S. or prolonged detention at facilities with inhumane conditions.

Exploiting a cultural misunderstanding   

Advocates say newly arrived immigrants are at particular risk of fraud, as they are unfamiliar with the U.S. legal system and often unsure who is qualified to give them legal advice.

Public Counsel notes that the term notario público itself “provides a unique opportunity for deception.”

In many Latin American countries, notarios públicos are highly educated legal experts who have similar training and professional duties as lawyers. In contrast, a “notary public” in the U.S. is solely authorized to witness the signature of forms and may not provide legal advice or services. According to the nonprofit, notarios in the U.S. exploit this cultural misunderstanding.

Notarios, the nonprofit adds, typically advertise themselves as a more affordable option to licensed attorneys, falsely claiming that a lawyer is not necessary in an immigration case. Tax preparers, travel agents and even pastors have also been known to exploit vulnerable immigrant communities.

What do the schemes look like?

Kathleen Rivas, a supervising attorney at Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, described a common scheme: Immigrants who have a family member who's a U.S citizen or lawful permanent resident often approach notarios asking for support in filing a family petition, she said. Instead, notaries will submit an asylum application on their behalf — sometimes without that person’s knowledge.

When people have a pending asylum application, they receive a work permit, Rivas said. This can lead immigrants to believe things are going well; but if that asylum application gets denied, they could soon face a deportation order.

Martha, an immigrant from Mexico who is now being represented by Rivas, spent more than $14,000 trying to get help from a man who posed as an attorney. (Martha declined to share her last name with LAist, out of fear of reprisals.) Martha first reached out to the fraudster in 2023, heeding a relative’s recommendation. After she paid him, she said, the fraudster became less responsive. Years passed. She begged for updates. He asked for more money.

Then, Donald Trump was re-elected, and federal agents began detaining immigrants in court. With her heart in her mouth, Martha attended a mandatory ICE check-in without the support of her supposed lawyer. A friend recommended Martha ask the man she’d hired for his license number.

“He never gave it to me, ever,” she said. Martha later learned that he’d filed an asylum application on her behalf, despite her objections.

What’s being done

Public Counsel is calling on state lawmakers and local governments to allocate more resources to investigate and bring enforcement actions against illegal immigration consultants.

The nonprofit also recommends updating the state’s Immigration Consultants Act, first enacted in 1986.

According to Rivas, California enacted this law in response to a huge increase in need for immigration help. But, she underscored, immigration consultants are meant to have a very limited role in individual cases. These duties include helping people fill out forms, as well as translating and gathering documents.

Immigrant consultants “are absolutely not supposed to be giving legal advice or tell people what they qualify for or what they should apply for,” Rivas said. “But, often, it is these people that are engaging in fraud, and they often go far outside the bounds of their limited scope.”

In her view, the state needs to “dramatically [raise] the bar of who can operate as an immigration consultant” by requiring “actual training, oversight, accountability [and] supervision from an attorney” — or repeal the law altogether.