Trump administration considers requiring banks to collect citizenship information
Source: msn/WSJ
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The Trump administration is weighing a possible executive order or other action that would require banks to collect citizenship information from customers, a new front in the administrations crackdown on immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, according to people familiar with the matter.
The action could ultimately task banks with requesting an unprecedented new category of documents, such as a passport, from both new and existing customers who want to maintain a bank account in the U.S., the people said. Discussions about the potential executive order have alarmed banks in recent days, some of the people said.
Banks in the U.S. are required to collect certain information under know your customers rules to guard against money laundering and crime. That often includes collecting passports and Social Security numbers. But those rules dont include gathering citizenship status specifically and banks dont routinely share that information with the government. There is no prohibition on banks opening accounts for noncitizens in the U.S.
The Trump administration has pushed to reduce the number of immigrants in the country illegally and has increased enforcement. One White House official said the potential executive order was being discussed inside the Treasury Department and hasnt been approved. The administration generally maintains that no ideas are settled until announced by the president.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-administration-considers-requiring-banks-to-collect-citizenship-information/ar-AA1WZBpJ
DBoon
(24,860 posts)What about people who do their banking online because branches are located too far away?
slightlv
(7,634 posts)Who did the direct pay to banks. Are they gonna cut off the SS? This is so stupid. Hea trump... show us YOUR family's papers!
ChicagoTeamster
(696 posts)twodogsbarking
(18,227 posts)FredGarvin
(838 posts)Clickbait
BumRushDaShow
(167,954 posts)Passports aren't required to have a bank account.
awesomerwb1
(5,064 posts)Skittles
(170,560 posts)that one never gives up trying
IcyPeas
(25,269 posts)
Bayard
(29,185 posts)That trump hates immigrants so much when his parents, and two of his wives were immigrants.
mtngirl47
(1,235 posts)From the trip down the escalator to the genius idea to build a wall---he ginned up the right wing and they handed him the presidency--twice because of the lies about open borders.
Don't get me wrong, he's a pure out racist, but he only hates immigrants because it put him in power.
orangecrush
(29,634 posts)SomewhereInTheMiddle
(636 posts)I know this is America where we don't need no stinkin' badges AND because the idea originates with the evil Regime it must have evil purposes.
But I have had to show my passport to get a bank account in the UK, Japan, Finland, and Rwanda - the other countries in which I have lived over the last 40 years. I did not think it evil in those places.
I am not so much worried about the act of identifying citizenship, as different countries have different financial and tax regulations that apply to their citizens at home or abroad. Banks play a part in this system.
I am worried at the motivations of this government. How are they going to use this to hurt people.
Several possibilities have been mentioned from identifying people without proper permission to be in the country to economically disenfranchising people that don't have passports or other necessary papers to screwing people who can't get to the bank in person easily to provide the papers they do have.
I fall into the last category. It is a long and expensive trip if I have to fly from Rwanda to PA to show my passport in person at my American bank.
I think there are problems to overcome, but the basic requirement of signifying citizenship does not seem to me to be inherently wrong. I just don't want this regime to ask for it.