A great man once explained why New Jersey needed to tighten up its requirements for issuing driver’s licenses.

"In an era after 9/11 it is so critical to have working safeguards to show we are who we say we are,” this man said back in 2004 as he implemented an ID system with a six-point verification system to prevent fraud.

That great man – or perhaps I should say “great politician” - was none other than Jim McGreevey.

Though his run as governor ended later that year for unrelated reasons, McGreevey had the soundest of political instincts.

As for the current Democrat in the job, not so much. Last week, Gov. Phil Murphy led his party into a loss of three seats in legislative elections.

A major reason for the loss was the pounding the Democrats took on the issue of immigration. Typical was a flyer that landed in my mailbox informing me that the Republican Assembly candidates in my district intended to “Repeal Governor Murphy’s Sanctuary State” and “Oppose driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.”

The Democratic majorities in both houses are now pushing a bill that would permit the issuance of such licenses. The timing is not in their favor.

That’s because the Department of Homeland Security is pushing New Jersey residents to get a license that meets the six-point requirements for the federal “Real ID” program.

Never mind that those requirements overlap with the six points of ID that you have to present under the McGreevey reform.

You will have to dig out those documents and schlep down to the Motor Vehicle Commission office again.

If you don’t do that by Oct. 1 of next year, your license will not permit you to gain entrance to those dreaded TSA airport checkpoints that are another legacy of 9/11.

Yesterday, Larry Higgs of NJ Advance Media reported in this paper that the U.S. Travel Association says 99 million Americans don’t have either the Real ID licenses or the passports that they’ll need to get on planes 11 months from now.

He quoted the vice president of that group saying that this could mean "significant headaches at DMVs, including long lines and wait times throughout next year.”

But at the same time the feds are tightening up the license requirements for fully documented citizens, the Jersey pols want to loosen them for undocumented aliens.

For example, to get that Real ID license you have to provide proof of your Social Security number. But under the bill now before both houses of the Legislature, an undocumented alien can get a standard license, one that is not eligible for Real ID, upon providing proof “that the person is not eligible to receive a Social Security number.”

In that case, the person in question need only provide “satisfactory proof of identity and age.”

Under McGreevey’s reforms, the ID standards were so stringent that the MVC rejected many birth certificates from Hudson County because they couldn’t be verified.

Yet now the MVC is going to accept birth certificates from El Salvador?

Not that I have anything against El Salvador. It’s one of my favorite countries. I’ve driven there twice, passing through Mexico and Guatemala on the way.

I did all that on my New Jersey license. If I can drive around a foreign country on my license, what’s stopping a foreigner from driving around America on his license?

Nothing. People do it all the time. The only complication is that most states have a 90-day limit for doing so.

The problem arises when people overstay that limit. And that is a problem that needs to be solved on the federal rather than the state level.

It should have been resolved after 9/11, but President George W. Bush was more intent on providing border security in Iraq than in America.

President Trump, by comparison, has signaled he’s ready to make a deal. He’s even suggested he would accept an amnesty of some sort. But such a deal would have to include a crackdown on illegal immigration at the same time current immigrants would be legalized.

At the moment the national Democrats are not supporting such measures.

Perhaps in his new role as the head of the Democratic Governors Association Phil Murphy can encourage his fellow Democrats to seek such a compromise.

But in the meantime, he’d better double the size of the MVC staff if he intends to issue licenses to tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants at the same time all those Real ID licenses are being issued.

That crisis will come to a head just a month before next year’s elections.

Unless he wants a repeat of this year’s results, he’d better figure out a way to deal with it.

Perhaps he should give McGreevey a call.