By Blake Driver, Reporter for Albuquerque Business First:

The rules for Real ID compliance at federal facilities in New Mexico are supposed to go into effect today, but most of the ones in Albuquerque will continue accepting the same forms of ID they did before yesterday’s deadline for an extension.

Coupled with Friday’s announcement that New Mexicans have two more years to get driver’s licenses that are Real ID compliant for air travel, some argue that Real ID isn’t a law the Department of Homeland Security is serious about enforcing.

Jim Harper, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said he believes the Department of Homeland Security will continue to offer extensions instead of enforcement if states decide not to comply with Real ID.

“When states have refused the DHS deadlines, DHS backed down,” he told Business First. “All the news stories would be about [the Transportation Security Administration] turning away Americans traveling to see grandma. Then trouble comes to TSA, DHS and the U.S. Congress. The balance of politics is all in favor of the states.”

Martinez herself seemed to echo this sentiment at a recent legislative preview luncheon hosted by the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce.

“We’ve been told for five years that we need it,” she told the room full of business leaders. “We’ve been getting extensions after extensions.”

Harper said the lawsuits that would come out of Real ID enforcement would be “fascinating,” since a case could be made that DHS has been selective about which states to grant extensions to based on its own material compliance checklist. Click here ot read the full article.