Bank of America's New Credit Card Targets Illegal Immigrants

"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.

I guess he does not recognize that they are ILLEGALS!

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.

Is it just me or does anyone else recognize that poor Antonio is someone who has broken the law and is here illegally?The fact that he works 2 illegal jobs and drives a Thunderbird does not make a damn bit of difference to me. Gain citizenship the right way Antonio and you can get all of the benefits Americans have! This guy has been in America for 9 years illegally WTF!!!

"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."

How about get citizenship. Why have you missed that opportunity?

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.

Banks could not miss out on all that illegal money huh.


This whole thing stinks more and more every time I see something about it. I can not believe they even let themselves get quoted on some of this crap.
So I guess illegals don't have to worry about getting bad credit. All they need to do is get a new Mexican ID and go to another branch and get there free $500 with $99 down.

I was a member of MBNA and they were a horrible company. The lowest of the low. Its good to see BOA is keeping to the tradition.

[edit on 20-2-2007 by Digital_Reality]

Here is a link to some BofA video segments from Neil Cavuto's Your World.


Bank of America Backlash

Looks like the Boycott is getting a little steam, when I checked it four days ago it had just over 100 signatures, I just checked it today and the number was nearly 7000.

You can check out the page here:

BofA Boycott

Bank of America finally responded to the uproar their new illegal-immigrant credit card program in an REUTERS article here:

Bank of America defends immigrant card program

In his Thursday opinion piece, Lewis admitted it is not pleasant to be caught a century later in the "heated" national immigration debate, and that he was "feeling the passion."

Still, he pledged to continue the card program, which he said complies with the USA Patriot Act and other laws.

Lewis said illegal immigrants can obtain cards at many U.S. banks and businesses, and that Bank of America requires other identification to open accounts.

They stand behind their decision and will continue the program.

Boycott total as of post 12126 signatures and counting...

Nothing will stop them from twisting the law and doing whatever they want.
Its all about big business and big money. That is all that matters anymore to these companies.These companies trade our country away a piece at a time. Pretty soon there will be no more to trade away.

As illegals I assume Mexicans. Having myself lived in the bowels of this so called illegal immigrant hellhole I can tell you personally that most of them are EXTREMELY hard working people just trying to make a living. They are willing to perform jobs that most whites will not perform that is why there is a job market for "illegals". Dont try to tell me an american workers would be willing to pick fruit for penny's on the dollar, if they were willing to actually do that which I doubt it and it would cost so much more that it would throw the whole food industry into a spin and the people that protested the illegals in the first place would not be able to afford the fruit or vegetables because of the price. Now going back to the original question, money drives the economy. If some need arises they are forced to go to loan sharks for a loan, would it not be better for them to have a credit card and pay the percentage on it? Will it not help economy by allowing people to shop at regular stores?

From article:

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

Well really, the core issue comes down to whether a business entity should be able to do business with someone who has committed a crime, even though they have not been punished for it yet. In that sense, business entities do business with people who have comitted crimes all the time, each and every day. So does this mean that BoA or whoever should also stop doing business with people who are suspects in ongoing court cases too- because those people committed crimes and have still not been punished for them yet?

That almost presents a winning battle perspective for BoA and whoever else does business with illegal immigrants. Where they lose the war though is the fact that due to the nature of the crime, with being here against the law, that business opportunity should never been a legally viable option in the first place. But yet it is continually exploited like illegal immigration laws weren't even there.

Again, remember the LEGAL immigrants that the US takes in by droves and droves every year. America already in a sense did choose a quality threshold of sorts with the legal immigration process. Applicants are screened, and ultimate residency granted with some degree of judiciousness. That was the standard set by the immigration laws.

Any illegal immigrant eliminates that judiciousness, along with the wires they cut on the border fence. This is one of the core reasons why it's a problem for what was a "USA" average standard of living, into which those immigration laws and processes were incorporated. The country and people as a whole together obtained that standard of living, and that includes legal immigrants.

So then it's a question of just how much the US bends over to help a brutha out. And so many people have so many different threshold visions for that, there just isn't any resolve that is going to make everyone happy. Unless, of course, people just started following the laws again. Imagine that.

Did they ever teach you about assumptions in school lecter? Maybe you never studied science. When you assume it makes an a*# out of U and me. No, we are not talking about Mexicans necessarily. An illegal immigrant is an illegal immigrant be they from Mexico or England. The fact that they are here illegally makes it possible for an employer to get around paying them an established wage, required benefits, and paying taxes. That means that a job that a legal worker used to do for a fair wage is taken away and the employer gets the same work for peanuts from the illegal. That is money in the pocket of the greedy employer at a cost to the legal worker and to the illegal one. Americans would do every job out there if they would be paid a legal wage for their services. The cost of the product would be the same but there would be less profit for the employer. Doing the jobs that Americans will not do is a BOLD FACED LIE. The illegals are hurt by this practice, the legals are hurt even worse by this practice - the bastards getting away with robbery are the rich pr#*k business owners. Either you do not understand this or you are one of the greedy traitors making money off of the misfortune of the middle and lower class Americans as well as the illegals. It's time for a revolution and a very bloody one at that!

You have my sincere apology, Lecter, for the posting above. In looking over my comment I feel that I was harsh with you. This topic makes me see red but that is no excuse. I am sorry.

Originally posted by duckcheney
You have my sincere apology, Lecter, for the posting above. In looking over my comment I feel that I was harsh with you. This topic makes me see red but that is no excuse. I am sorry.

No apologies necessary, this is a complex topic that invokes emotions in people on both sides of the fence.

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?

Well said

You have voted Rockpuck for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month.

The only thing I would add to your quote would be that the responsibility for having eight kids and no way to feed them begins with Mr. & Mrs. Gonzales themselves. Maybe after the seventh kid someone should have told Mr. G to "wrap his little bandito".

Originally posted by JacKatMtn
They stand behind their decision and will continue the program.

Boycott total as of post 12126 signatures and counting...

I wonder how many people have signed up for the service since the announcement?

I would wager that it is far more than twelve thousand odd people.