I checked the State of California website for REAL ID eligibility before I wrote my above comment, and it confirms that people with temporary legal immigration status are eligible for REAL ID cards, specifically mentioning DACA recipients as an example of a category of people who are eligible. This is exactly the sort of thing I think should not be allowed by the federal framework governing REAL IDs, non-permanent residents should not be able to get a REAL ID at all under any circumstances and the one for permanent residents should look obviously distinct from those for citizens. The point of this is to make it extremely obvious that a REAL ID holder is definitely a legal citizen, and therefore make it actually useful for proving citizenship or legal permanent residency.
You're effectively saying non-permanent residents should be prohibited from using commercial flight to move around the giant country that is the US. I'm not sure if that's your intention.
I've personally flown domestic commercial flights in at least two foreign countries (China and Mexico), that I have no legal permanent residency in, using the same American passport I used as ID to enter these countries to begin with; and there was no issue. I don't even know what the Chinese or Mexican equivalent of a REAL ID might be like. I'm sure the US could create a similar legal ID framework for domestic air travel.
California is an outlier here. I am a permanent resident in Washington and Washington will only issue REAL ID-compliant Enhanced Drivers Licenses to US citizens, not to LPRs.
Maybe it is, I don't know the rules as they exist in every state - but that's also a problematic aspect of the REAL ID system: because the rules vary somewhat from state to state, authorities in one state who are used to one system for who can be legitimately given a REAL ID might make bad assumptions about someone from another state with different rules. And in any case, California is the most populous state by far, so even if it's an outlier, that still affects a huge percentage of the entire US population.
We really should have one, federally issued ID system, that works uniformally everywhere in the country for demonstrating citizenship and legal permanent residency, and that no other category of person can be able to legitimately obtain.
Washington is one of a handful of states (all bordering Canada) that offer enhanced driver's licenses, which are by definition meant to prove US citizenship so you can use it to travel back to the US from Canada.
