Freedom Folks: Fox Guarding The Henhouse?

Source: LA Times

Does anyone really believe that the government is serious about stopping illegal immigration when they profit from it directly?

WASHINGTON — Even as the federal government is starting to crack down on companies that hire illegal immigrants, it’s been helping those same workers send money home, cheap.

Dubbed Directo a Mexico, the Federal Reserve-sponsored service allows customers without Social Security numbers to wire money through the Fed system to Mexico’s central bank at little cost. In September, the Fed expanded the remittance program by allowing immigrants, legal or not, to open accounts at participating banks and credit unions in the U.S. or Mexico. About 27,000 transfers are made through the program each month.

The program has attracted the attention of conservative immigration activists and members of Congress, who say financial institutions shouldn’t cater to illegal immigrants.

Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-Solana Beach), who leads the congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, said Directo a Mexico and programs like it should be stopped and that participating banks were “profiteering from illegal immigration.”

Bilbray is also targeting Bank of America Corp., which this month announced plans to offer credit cards to immigrants without Social Security numbers, drawing complaints that the nation’s largest retail bank was underwriting illegal immigration.

“It’s illegal for a landlord to do it, it’s illegal for an employer to do it, and it should be illegal for financial institutions to do it,” Bilbray said.