As a "resident alien" this ruling strikes me as none to well thought
out. Interstingly, I assume (at least I hope) that when Immigration
issues a green card they do some verfication at the time. The card
also includes a photograph and a fingerprint. So, as far as I can
tell no new information is really being captured if agencies simply
talked to each other, but the flightschool (or rather our glider club)
is being made to jump through hoops with no added national security
and potentially a detrimental effect on flight safety if people are in
any way discouraged from taking additional or recurrent trainining.
Stunning.

I have filed a comment to the docket and encourage others
(particularily affected resident aliens) to do so also. Please, keep
them rational rather than emotional, but do file a comment.

P.S. This thing may take a while to work its way around to common
sense. So, if you need one within the next 3 months - absolutely do
it before the 20th lest you find yourself grounded waiting for your
instructor to receive 'TSA approval' to give you instruction (I really
hope I'm interpretting that wrongly).