Professor Gordon Hanson comments on banking and illegal immigrants in the LA Times
A move to issue credit cards to people without Social Security numbers draws anger and praise.
03/02/2007
E. Scott Reckard, David Streitfeld and Adrian G. Uribarri,
Los Angeles 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 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. ....
There's a serious issue behind the flap, said Gordon H. Hanson, an economist and immigration expert at UC San Diego. The federal government has been stalemated on the immigration issue for years, abdicating its role in defining rights for 12 million people, and Bank of America moved into the breach, he said. It couldn't make immigrants citizens, but it could make them customers.
"Are we undermining civil society?" Hanson asked. "That's an entirely valid question."
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