U.S. Trav­el­ers who aren’t RE­AL ID com­pli­ant by the up­com­ing dead­line this week will still be able to fly but should be pre­pared for ex­tra scruti­ny, the head of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty said Tues­day.

Kristi Noem told a Con­gres­sion­al pan­el that 81% of trav­el­ers al­ready have IDs that com­ply with the RE­AL ID re­quire­ments. She said se­cu­ri­ty check­points will al­so be ac­cept­ing pass­ports and trib­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion when the dead­line hits Wednes­day.

Those who still lack an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion that com­plies with the RE­AL ID law “may be di­vert­ed to a dif­fer­ent line, have an ex­tra step,” Noem said.

“But peo­ple will be al­lowed to fly,” she said. “We will make sure it’s as seam­less as pos­si­ble.”

RE­AL ID is a fed­er­al­ly com­pli­ant state-is­sued li­cense or iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card that Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty says is a more se­cure form of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. It was a rec­om­men­da­tion by the 9/11 Com­mis­sion and signed in­to law in 2005, but im­ple­men­ta­tion has been re­peat­ed­ly de­layed. —WASH­ING­TON (AP)

________

Sto­ry by RE­BEC­CA SAN­TANA | As­so­ci­at­ed Press