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Nearing the fifteen year mark of the original legislation to implement new identity requirements for air travel, the Transportation Security Administration was pushing compliance through national media ads and on social media sites to encourage people to hurry up and get their REAL ID before May 2023 when it would be required for boarding planes and entering federal facilities. But this week, the Department of Homeland Security issued a new deadline for compliance that stopped the TSA’s push in its tracks.

People who do not yet have their REAL ID now have until May 7, 2025 to obtain the star on their driver’s license or a separate ID card according to a press release issued by Homeland Security.

In the press release, the department blamed the on-going backlog of applications created by the COVID pandemic that is causing state motor vehicle departments to be unable to process the IDs in a timely manner.

Since the passage of the REAL ID Act in 2005 as a response to increasing security to avoid another terrorist attack as occurred on Sept 11, 2001, the deadline has been reset three times and as of 2021, only 43% of state-issued driver’s licenses were compliant. There are still some legislators are also against enforcing the REAL ID law at all and have been working to have it dismantled.