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Originally posted by souls
How is it that it is spiraling out of control? I think it is a good idea. If there are people that by law are considered "illegal", living in this country, It's a very good idea to provide them with the same basic rights as driving licenses and such. They are not going anywhere, so what you want is that they remain unidentified and fly under the radar as they have for years. You should understand that the majority of these people are honest, hard working people who like you and your ancestors and mine, seek a better opportunity and life. You are not complaining when the European forefathers murdered the Natives for their land.
It's a very good idea to provide them with the same basic rights
You are not complaining when the European forefathers murdered the Natives for their land.
Originally posted by ferretman2
The are not 'Honest'..............
If they were they would of come the the United States of America LEGALLY!
The fact that they are here illegally and hide, shows that they are dishonest.
What part of ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS don't some of you understand?
Aren't there laws regarding immigration?
Isn't there a LEGAL way to enter the USA?
Originally posted by TrueAmerican
HA. lol, funny you should mention that! I thought about it earlier, I swear! And what happens when they refuse to open a checking account or give you a CC without your SS#??? Ahhhh, wait! I speak fluent spanish. hehehehehe, sneaky me. Now the possibilities are endless....
But they shouldn't be. That's the point. We might not agree on much Xphiles, but I'd be more than happy to join you on that venture anyday!
Originally posted by Unrealised
Originally posted by ferretman2
The are not 'Honest'..............
If they were they would of come the the United States of America LEGALLY!
The fact that they are here illegally and hide, shows that they are dishonest.
What part of ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS don't some of you understand?
Aren't there laws regarding immigration?
Isn't there a LEGAL way to enter the USA?
If you came from a rotten life with no money and you wanted to give your kids a chance at life, you would do ANYTHING to make it happen.
These people aren't neccesarily killers or rapists. They have the same blood as you or I. They just don't want to live in a country where pain is God.
I hope in your next life that you are born into a war-torn country and are threatened with death and hunger on a daily basis, on top of having NO MONEY, then you will see how hard it will be to enter the U.S LEGALLY.
Last i checked, Mrs. Gonzales having 8 kids and nothing to feed them is not my problem. NOR is it my country mens problem. It is Mexico's problem. I do not see Canada having problems and sneaking over the border. In fact, more AMERICANS migrated to Canada in the past 4 years. We have our own poor to deal with ok.. we don't need Mexico's poor waste seeping over the border when we cannot even help our own homeless, poor, inner city, everyday American education, we cannot even give proper health care to our OWN PEOPLE.... why the hell should a Mexican get it?
Originally posted by souls
How is it that it is spiraling out of control? I think it is a good idea. If there are people that by law are considered "illegal", living in this country, It's a very good idea to provide them with the same basic rights as driving licenses and such. They are not going anywhere, so what you want is that they remain unidentified and fly under the radar as they have for years. You should understand that the majority of these people are honest, hard working people who like you and your ancestors and mine, seek a better opportunity and life. You are not complaining when the European forefathers murdered the Natives for their land.
Originally posted by Rockpuck
Last i checked, Mrs. Gonzales having 8 kids and nothing to feed them is not my problem. NOR is it my country mens problem. It is Mexico's problem. I do not see Canada having problems and sneaking over the border. In fact, more AMERICANS migrated to Canada in the past 4 years. We have our own poor to deal with ok.. we don't need Mexico's poor waste seeping over the border when we cannot even help our own homeless, poor, inner city, everyday American education, we cannot even give proper health care to our OWN PEOPLE.... why the hell should a Mexican get it?
Originally posted by Wildbob77
I'm just curious, who will end up paying when the illegal run up their charge card balance then go beck to wherever they came from. You have to remember that many of the illegal also are using fraudulent documents.
Originally posted by souls
How is it that it is spiraling out of control? I think it is a good idea. If there are people that by law are considered "illegal", living in this country, It's a very good idea to provide them with the same basic rights as driving licenses and such. They are not going anywhere, so what you want is that they remain unidentified and fly under the radar as they have for years. You should understand that the majority of these people are honest, hard working people who like you and your ancestors and mine, seek a better opportunity and life. You are not complaining when the European forefathers murdered the Natives for their land.
Originally posted by Unrealised
Originally posted by Rockpuck
Last i checked, Mrs. Gonzales having 8 kids and nothing to feed them is not my problem. NOR is it my country mens problem. It is Mexico's problem. I do not see Canada having problems and sneaking over the border. In fact, more AMERICANS migrated to Canada in the past 4 years. We have our own poor to deal with ok.. we don't need Mexico's poor waste seeping over the border when we cannot even help our own homeless, poor, inner city, everyday American education, we cannot even give proper health care to our OWN PEOPLE.... why the hell should a Mexican get it?
So, basically you have no empathy and no love for the poor in General. Safety and right to life have no borders.
They are not waste, they are human beings.
Show some human spirit and stop being so disgusting.
"We are willing to grant credit to someone with little or no credit history," said Lance Weaver, Bank of America's head of international card services, whose team designed the program based in part on the bank's experience in markets like Spain, which lack conventional credit bureaus to rate a client's credit-worthiness.
The credit cards involved aren't cheap. They come with a high interest rate and an upfront fee. And the idea of catering to illegal immigrants is controversial.
Bank of America defends the program, saying it complies with U.S. banking and antiterrorism laws. Company executives say 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," said Brian Tuite, the bank's director of Latin America card operations and one of the architects of the program.
Typical of the new card's customers is Antonio Sanchez, a Mexican immigrant whose only major asset is a white, 1996 Ford Thunderbird, which he drives to the two restaurants where he works each day on opposite sides of Los Angeles. Sanchez, who says he sneaked across the border a decade ago, has been a customer of Bank of America's East Hollywood branch for nine years. He has no borrowing history and no Social Security number.
To obtain a Bank of America Visa card with a $500 line of credit, Sanchez had to put down $99. If he stays within his $500 limit and pays his balances in a timely fashion, he will receive his $99 security payment back in three to six months, and his credit limit might be increased.
"I always wanted to start building credit to buy a home, but I couldn't," said Sanchez, a father of three children who earns about $25,000 a year from his two jobs. "When a senorita at the bank told me about this card, I couldn't miss the opportunity to get it. You need credit to succeed in this country."
The variable annual percentage rate charged on Sanchez's card is 21.24 percent, higher than the average interest rate of 18.1 percent card issuers nationwide charge on unpaid balances, according to the Nilson Report, an industry newsletter based in Carpinteria, Calif.
David Robertson, publisher of the report, said a rate of 21.24 percent is "unquestionably high."
"If that's the rate you're offered, it's a pretty safe bet you're in a high-risk group," he said.
To assess an applicant, the bank employs "judgmental lending," a concept pioneered by MBNA Corp., the credit-card company that Bank of America acquired in January 2006. In essence, the bank bases its evaluation of a potential client's credit-worthiness on a subjective review by its employees, rather than on standardized financial data crunched by a computer.
Unorthodox initiatives like the new credit-card program may be crucial to Bank of America's long-term success. In the past the bank, which operates in 31 states and the District of Columbia, grew mostly by buying up other banks. Now, however, it is bumping up against a regulatory cap that bars any U.S. bank from an acquisition that would give it more than 10 percent of the nation's total bank deposits. That means Bank of America's only way to grow domestically is to sell more products to existing customers and to attract new ones.
Bank of America, the second-largest U.S. bank after Citigroup Inc. in terms of market capitalization, estimates that there are 28 million Hispanics in its operating area and that most of them, regardless of their immigration status, don't have a bank. It hopes the allure of a credit card will persuade hundreds of thousands more Latinos to open accounts.
"If we don't disproportionately grow in the Hispanic (market) ... we aren't going to grow" as a bank, said Liam McGee, Bank of America's consumer and small-business banking chief.
Illegal immigrants have typically relied on loan sharks and neighborhood finance shops for credit. That has begun to change. A few years ago, a handful of community banks in the U.S. began offering mortgages to illegal immigrants, as long as they could prove they had stable employment and paid U.S. taxes with an individual tax identification number, or ITIN.
In December 2005, Wells Fargo & Co. began extending mortgages to consumers with an ITIN. The bank is evaluating a pilot program in Los Angeles and Orange counties before deciding whether to expand it.
Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said banking products aimed at illegal immigrants "reinforce the need for a temporary worker program" that the Bush administration has been promoting. That program would screen, tax and otherwise regulate immigrant workers and, the administration contends, would squeeze out illegal workers who now use forged or stolen documents to get jobs, driver's licenses and occasionally credit.
Anti-money-laundering regulations passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks put more pressure on banks to verify customers' identity and watch for suspicious transactions, but they don't require banks to ascertain whether account holders are in the U.S. legally. Most banks require a Social Security number or ITIN to open an account, but regulations also allow them to accept othth store credit cards. "Once you capture them, they become very loyal," says Ron Azarkman, chief executive of La Curacao, which has developed its own in-house credit-ratings system. "This is a promising market, as long as it is carefully managed," he says, adding that the average APR charged by his company is 22.9 percent.
Bank of America hasn't launched an ad campaign for the new card. For the time being, it is counting on word of mouth that starts with its employees at each banking center. Many of the Spanish-speaking account holders who come to teller Luz Quintanilla's window at Bank of America's East Hollywood branch, already have a Social Security number and regular credit card with the bank. But she suggests in Spanish that "maybe you have family or friends who don't have a Social Security number, but wish to build their credit."
In selling the card, a major challenge is to persuade immigrants who are sometimes wary of plastic that holding a credit card is an important step on the way to obtaining loans for big-ticket items, such as a car or even a home. Pictures of a check book, credit card, car and house in ascending order illustrate this concept in one pamphlet in Spanish and English titled "How to Build Your Credit, Step by Step."