Of Course Giving Them Credit Cards Will Encourage Self-Deportation

Via the Wall St. Journal and Los Angeles Times, here are a pair of stories reporting that Bank of America will now provide credit cards to people it knows to be illegal immigrants, and that Wells Fargo (who already provides mortgages to illegals) is likely to follow suit.

Who else needs a credit card if they have no Social Security Number? Moreover, what on God's earth makes anyone think that giving someone here illegally access to a bank account and the U.S. banking system as a whole would cause a single illegal immigrant to leave? Providing illegal immigrants access to bank accounts embeds them more in society, not less. Worse yet, watch an American citizen try to walk into a bank and get a credit card or a mortgage without giving the bank their SSN and see how quickly they get laughed out the door. If the goal of immigration law is to discourage people from coming here illegally, then it should also be illegal for businesses to profit from affirmatively catering to people it knows or should reasonably suspect are here illegally.

Of course, I'm not sure what good it would to to have such a law (assuming there isn't one on the books already), because the laws we already have are so rarely enforced in a substantive way that having that kind of law wouldn't make any difference. It seems to me that the CEOs and head corporate officers of these companies could be criminally liable for conspiring to violate federal immigration laws and possibly some U.S. Treasury regulations, but unfortunately, even if they are, it will be a cold day in hell before they're ever arrested and prosecuted, much less told to stop what they're doing. Things like this still make me angry, but I'm far past the point of being surprised. The GOP wants cheap labor and the Democrats want generations of lower-class, government dependent votes, so no one is willing to worry about anything so quaint as the law anymore...except for a very few legislators (Reps. Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter, Sen. Jeff Sessions, and others who try in vain to point out the dangers of illegal immigration), a pox on them all.

Wall Street Journal (link unavailable due to pay site)

"Bank of America defends the program, saying it complies with U.S. banking and antiterrorism laws. Company executives say that the initiative isn't about politics, but rather about meeting the needs of an untapped group of potential customers.

'These people are coming here for quality of life, and they deserve somebody to give them a chance to achieve that quality of life,' says Brian Tuite, the bank's director of Latin America card operations and one of the architects of the program.

Critics say Bank of America is knowingly making a product available to people who are violating U.S. immigration law. 'They are clearly crossing the line; they are actually aiding and abetting people who broke the law,' says Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates a crackdown on illegal immigration."

L.A. Times

Bank of America said Tuesday that it was issuing credit cards to Spanish-speaking immigrants who may not have Social Security numbers, triggering complaints that the nation's largest retail bank is tacitly endorsing illegal immigration. The bank described the program as a pilot, limited for now to 51 branches in Los Angeles County, and said it could go national this year. The credit cards are not aimed specifically at illegal immigrants, a bank spokeswoman said, but instead people who lack solid credit histories. Even so, the bank was bombarded with angry phone calls. ...

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) accused the lender of aiding terrorists, while the Department of Homeland Security worried that the program could be exploited by criminals.

"At face value the program seems to be problematic," said Russ Knocke, a department spokesman. "It seems to be lending itself to possibilities of perpetrating identity theft or creating more risk for money laundering."

"It helps to further embed illegal immigrants into American society," said Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which backs stricter enforcement of immigration laws. "It makes amnesty a fait accompli."

Tancredo said he sent a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking them to look into the program.

"I hope the administration will shut down this reckless and illegal program before Bank of America extends a line of credit to a potential terrorist," said Tancredo, a hard-line foe of illegal immigration."