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The New York Times reports:
One day after Muhammad Ali Jr. spoke with members of Congress about being detained at a Florida airport last month, he was briefly stopped again before boarding a flight on Friday afternoon, his lawyer said.
When Mr. Ali, whose father died last year, arrived at Reagan National Airport in Washington on Friday for a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., he gave his Illinois identification card to a JetBlue agent to get his boarding pass, said his lawyer, Chris Mancini, who was traveling with him and witnessed the episode. Almost immediately, Mr. Ali was told that there was a problem and that the agent needed to call the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Mancini said.
Mr. Ali, 44, was asked his date of birth, where he was born and his Social Security number, Mr. Mancini said. After answering the questions, he was told that his Illinois-issued identification card, which expires in 2019 but is not a driver’s license, was invalid for flying.
“The same state ID from Illinois that he traveled to Washington on was rejected,” Mr. Mancini said in an interview on Friday night. Mr. Ali then produced his United States passport, which was accepted, and went through security and boarded the flight with his mother, Khalilah Camacho-Ali, the second wife of Muhammad Ali, and Mr. Mancini.
Mr. Mancini said that the episode lasted between 20 and 25 minutes. “This whole thing smacks of some sort of retaliation for his testimony,” he said.
If it expires in 2019 his Illinois state ID card does not comply with real ID requirements and may not be accepted by the feds. My own Illinois DL is too old and does not comply with real ID. While the state has gotten extensions (see link below) there is always the risk it won't be accepted by some TSA employee who hasn't gotten the memo. A TSA employee in Illinois would be familiar with this the one in DC maybe, maybe not. This is one of the issues why I always fly using my passport. Mr. Ali was likely aware of this as well as I am since he had his passport with him. This has nothing to do with Trump but instead George W. Bush.
ReplyDeletewww.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/ct-illinois-real-id-met-20160108-story.html
He is probably on a no-fly list. Its almost impossible to get removed.
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