California licensing error may lead to immigrants retaining Real IDs past visa expiry dates

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, about 325,000 people in the state need new Real IDs. The DMV said that it found the problem in the records for the driver's licenses, but is now correcting it. “We proactively reviewed our records, identified a legacy system issue from 2006, and are notifying impacted customers with clear guidance on how to maintain a valid California-issued credential,” California DMV Director Steve Gordon said. “For nearly 99% of REAL ID holders, no action is required.”

According to the outlet, the incident dates back to 2006, when the software "automatically applied standard expiration dates to some Real IDs for immigrants who are legally residing in the United States, instead of setting them to expire at the end of their authorized stay," the outlet reported.

The DMV claimed that they were in compliance with federal law, which only allows immigrants lawfully in the US to obtain a Real ID. Some, however, have called into question the state's claims, as it is possible that some immigrants who obtained a Real ID during their legal stay in California under their visa, could have had their visa expire, but had a Real ID with a later expiration date. The standard renewal in California for Real ID or driver’s license is around every 5 years.

Katie Miller posted to X, "300,000 IMMIGRANTS were mistakenly given driver licenses with incorrect expiration dates way beyond the legal standard. California claims it’s an error from a 2006(!) issue. This is malice, not incompetence."

The DMV, however, said that they were clean in issuing the Real IDs. “At NO point were REAL IDs ever issued to undocumented individuals (those without legal presence),” the Wednesday release said. “The issue was limited solely to how expiration dates were calculated for some of California’s noncitizen residents with legal presence.”