"Banks aim to help immigrants send money home"

What a heart-warming title to this CSM report (link). Of course, they don't go into the downsides: billions of dollars is flowing out of the country and being used to prop up corrupt foreign governments and depriving those countries of the citizens and industries they need to improve. And, that encourages those corrupt governments to send us even more of their people. And, many of those "immigrants" are in fact illegal aliens. And, that leads to banks and other remittance companies profiting off illegal immigration and that leads to political corruption as politicians are given donations by those companies and then look the other way.

And, it has this:
...As part of a global effort to lower remittance costs, the US government recently began working with the Mexican government, numerous banks, and nonprofit groups to launch two initiatives.

One, the New Alliance Task Force (NATF), focuses on providing immigrants' accounts with low-cost remittance services while promoting financial literacy. The other initiative allows US bank customers to send money to a Mexican bank account at low cost through the Federal Reserve's Automated Clearing House's international wire-transfer service, Directo a Mexico. Most banks offering this service charge the sender between $2.50 and $3 per transaction, according to the GAO. The recipient Mexican bank receives a share of 67 cents, and is not permitted to charge the recipient any other fees.

Both programs are geared toward Latin Americans, who send an estimated $30 billion abroad each year. Most of the institutions participating in NATF are community banks in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin; however, the program was recently launched in Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles. Since October, as many as 50 banks across 20 states have enrolled in the Directo a Mexico program, with more expected to join in the coming months.

These fee-reducing initiatives, along with the fact that US banks have been able to accept the Mexican consular identity card as a valid form of identification to open an account since 2002, have made sending remittances easier and more affordable for immigrants. Bank executives now hope that Latino immigrants will take advantage not only of their remittance services but also other financial offerings as well...
The Bush administration is deeply involved in supporting the moves outlined above. Whether they're leading the banks or the banks are leading them isn't known. In either case they're completely corrupt.

See also "Indiana's Bank Calumet gives home loans to illegal aliens", Their money or your safety, and "The Fastest Way To [profit from illegal immigration]"

Comments

"Wiring money is perfectly legal." Dave

Indeed it is. Every year at Christmas, my husband and I send several hundred dollars as gifts to his sister's family and his mother in the UK. It beats trying to figure out what they'd really like, which we might not have here anyway. However, we don't expect any government in the US to subsidize us while we ship money abroad unlike many of the folks described above, who freely use our schools, our hospitals, our social services, etc while shipping money out.

Wiring money is perfectly legal. For the government to restrict what one can do with one's money or to impose restrictions on sending money out of the country would cause an economic disaster in this country.

Yes, it's a typical MSM story about this sort of thing: there is a need for some service, and enterprising people or organizations are filling this need. Everyone is happy. Pretty simple. You have to look elsewhere -- like here -- if you want background, or something that does some analysis about what's between the lines.