Only the government could spend 20 years creating a national ID that no one wanted and that apparently doesn’t even work as a national ID. When Congress passed the REAL ID Act in 2005. It was sold as a post-9/11 security measure to create uniform standards for state IDs, including clearly listing citizenship or lawful immigration status. State IDs that conformed to the requirements would be marked with a star. DHS insists that REAL ID is not a national ID system, and that it doesn’t involve a centralized national database. They go on to say that because each state has its own REAL ID compliance laws, which may provide for the issuance of a REAL ID to an alien and therefore based on HSI Special Agent training and experience, REAL ID can be unreliable to confirm U.S. citizenship."