JBLM to enforce new ID requirements for visitors starting April 1

Washington residents who do business at Joint Base Lewis-McChord have about a month to prepare for a security change that will prohibit them from using their driver’s licenses as identification when they want to enter the military installation.

JBLM officials have been readying the new security protocol since December when the Department of Homeland Security began enforcing a 2005 law that established new federal standards for drivers licenses and other forms of identification.

Washington State’s driver’s licenses do not comply with the law — called the Real ID Act — setting up potential conflicts at airports and military installations. Navy bases in the Puget Sound region have been requiring other forms of identification since Feb. 1.

On April 1, JBLM’s visitor’s center will begin turning away people who only show Washington state driver’s licenses when they request entry passes. Usually, the base gives about 220,000 visitor’s passes every year to people who are not accompanied by military service members, base spokesman Joe Kubistek said.

The new standards do not change access procedures for troops, JBLM employees, military families, military retirees or civilians who go on base in the company of a military service member.

It mostly will impact people who want to visit JBLM’s museum and contractors who occasionally have work there.

JBLM on Monday announced that the following forms of identification will be acceptable for visitor’s passes after April 1:

▪ U.S. passports

▪ Permanent resident cards or alien registration receipt cards

▪ Foreign passports with temporary residence stamps (I-551)

▪ Machine-readable immigrant visas with printed notation and temporary residence stamps (I-551)

▪ Foreign passports with a current arrival-departure record or foreign passport with Immigration and Naturalization Service form I-94/I-94A bearing the same names as the passport and containing an endorsement of the alien’s non-immigrant status

▪ Employment authorization document that contains a photograph (I-776)

▪ Driver license or identification card issued by a state or outlying U.S. territory that complies with Real ID Act. For Washington and Minnesota, this is the enhanced driver’s license or enhanced ID.

▪ JBLM-issued rapid gate identification

▪ U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Mariner Card or transportation worker ID card issued by the Department of Homeland Security

▪ Native American tribal document

▪ For anyone under 18, a school ID card that contains a photo

People who have questions about visitor passes can call the base at 253-967-4794.

This story was originally published February 29, 2016 at 3:54 PM with the headline "JBLM to enforce new ID requirements for visitors starting April 1."