Posted on 02/18/2004 1:07:45 PM PST by TatooChick
Would you dare try it in Mexico?
Remind me again where He allowed anyone, alien or Israelite, to cheat and steal?
I wired money to a traveling friend in Europe and I did not have to show any ID.
Since you keep insisting in showing your ignorance, let me explain to you how it is done.
You go to a grocery store and look for a sign that says "Customer Service."
Then you fill out a form where you can use any name you want for both the sender and the receiver.
Then you give the clerk your money, and you get a receipt. No ID is ever required.
Then my friend in Greece goes to a money-transfer joint, and gives the clerk his fictitious name, and a password I gave him over the phone.
My friend picks up his money and goes to Cyprus to continue his vacation.
The sender was "Micky Mouse" and the receiver "Uncle Donald."
I'm sure my bank has no idea about this transaction.
Some laws require incarceration, cheating and stealing using forged documents are on that list. If given the either/or choice of immediate incarceration or immediate repatriotization, which do you think the majority would choose?
I'm talking bible/moral laws, not civil. My point is that Bush's posistion on immigrants (as is most issues) is more in line with biblical moral principles than folks want to admit. The same folks who want to point to the bible as support for their posistion on gays and marriage seem to get a blind spot when it comes to immigrants.
As long as you know your posistion is against the teachings of the old testament as well as the teachings of Jesus and realize that it was partially the bad treatment of aliens that got Soddom fried, then I accomplished my objective.
You keep making false statements.
Please provide the text of the federal law that requires Western Union to ask for ID before money is sent overseas, as well as examples of stores that have been prosecuted for failing to ask for ID when wiring money.
Banking Department Fines Western Union $8 Million for Violating Bank Secrecy, USA Patriot, New York Banking Laws
December 18, 2002
New York, NY: Superintendent of Banks Elizabeth McCaul announced today that the Banking Department reached a Consent Agreement with Western Union for violating the Federal Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), the USA PATRIOT Act and various sections of the New York State Banking Law. The Consent Agreement includes a fine of $8 million and requires Western Union to enhance its existing BSA compliance program. New York law requires that all licensees be in compliance with all applicable state and federal laws.
"Compliance with the BSA and USA PATRIOT Act is critical to the safety and soundness of our nation’s financial services industry, " Superintendent of Banks Elizabeth McCaul said. "The New York State Banking Department takes violations of the USA PATRIOT Act, the BSA, and the New York Banking Law very seriously. We want to ensure that the U.S. financial system is not used for illegal purposes."
The Banking Department conducted an examination of Western Union and found that it failed to timely file CTRs and SARs and to adequately supervise the activities of its agents. During the course of the examination, Department examiners found that Western Union did not file CTRs on multiple same day transactions conducted at different agents which, when aggregated, totaled in excess of $10,000. When the Banking Department uncovered that Western Union was not complying with the laws previously cited, it directed them to implement the practice of filing CTRs for aggregated transactions between agents that exceed $10,000.
"It is important that financial institutions understand the requirement that FinCEN has put in place to file CTRs for transactions based on the aggregation of consumer transactions regardless of whether the transactions occurred at related or unrelated agent locations," Superintendent McCaul added.
The terms of the Consent Agreement require Western Union to:
Western Union cooperated with the Banking Department during its examination and to date, all CTRs and SARs identified by the Banking Department have been filed with the proper authorities.
Superintendent McCaul said that she is "encouraged by the immediate steps taken by Western Union to correct the noted deficiencies as well as the enhancements to its compliance program that have been implemented."
Western Union Financial Services Inc. is a subsidiary of First Data Corp. Western Union has more than 117,000 agent locations in over 185 countries worldwide. It is the largest network of its kind, making more than one quarter billion money orders every year. First Data Corp. provides Electronic Funds Transfers to 75% of the world and provides card issuer services for 1,400 financial institutions and more than 390 million consumers worldwide.
The New York State Banking Department is the regulator for all state-chartered banking institutions, including nine of the State’s ten largest banks, and virtually all of the United States offices of international banking institutions. The Department also licenses all money service businesses operating in New York State. The aggregate assets of the companies and institutions supervised by the Banking Department are roughly $1.7 trillion
by Larry Tung
December, 2003
Sung, a Chinese construction worker, was turned away by Abacus Federal Savings Bank’s Flushing branch when he tried to open an account with his passport and a photocopied Chinese ID.
"I really don't understand," said Sung, a native of Liaoning Province who overstayed his visa. "I am putting my money in the bank, not borrowing money. Are they afraid that I would run away?"
To most immigrants, opening a bank account means the first step towards a better life, whether that means buying a house, sending their kids to college one day, or sending money back home.
But to undocumented workers like Sung, opening a bank account is getting more difficult these days.
One of the purposes of the U.S.A. Patriot Act that Congress passed in 2001 was to deter money laundering by potential terrorists. The unintended effect was to deal a big blow to many community-based banks whose customers include a large number of undocumented immigrants.
The new regulations went into effect on October 1, 2003, and banks now must keep clients’ information such as birthdates, passport numbers, alien identification card numbers, and report any suspicious transactions to the authorities.
According to an employee at a New York Chinese-owned community bank, who requested anonymity, they are more careful when reviewing applications and require at least two pieces of photo IDs with address verification. Their old policy only required one piece of ID.
“It takes so many steps and about three times the efforts to open an account now,” the employee said.
According to the Chinese-language Sing Tao Daily, the new rule has affected 10,000 people in New York’s Chinatown and as many as 10 Chinese community banks that mainly serve the undocumented Chinese workers there.
The new rule also had a profound impact on money transmitters like Western Union, a nationwide agency that can deliver money transfer within minutes.
“Our business had gone down since we adopted the new Patriot Act regulations,” said a clerk, surnamed Chang, at the Western Union agency on Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing, who requested her first name not to be revealed. She said the agency had adopted the new regulations in June and set a limit of $2,000 per person a month on money transfer.
Many immigrants complained about the tightened regulations. Some of them turned to their friends with proper documents for help.
An undocumented Chinese worker, who is surnamed Zhao and a native of Jilin Province, asked his friend to wire money for him, which has become a common practice among undocumented immigrants. “The limit of the amount is too low at Western Union. It’s easier to ask a friend to do it,” he said.
While passports still remain the most widely accepted foreign identification, China and other countries with a sizable undocumented population in the United States are considering giving their nationals residing overseas, both legally and illegally, a wallet-size ID card called “consular ID”. The move came following Mexico's successful re-launching of "matricula consular”, which is now accepted by 150 banks in 13 states for opening bank accounts and applying for driver's license.
Mexico's “matricula consular” program, first introduced more than a century ago, has gained immense popularity after the 9/11 attacks. The document is now available in 47 consulate offices across the United States for a minimal fee of $28. Mexican citizens with birth certificates and proof of U. S. address can apply. The card is currently recognized as an official identification by more than 900 police departments, and 100 cities, according to the Mexican Consulate in New York.
Guatemala, which receives about $1.3 billion from its citizens living overseas, began a similar program in September 2002. Its eight consulates in the United States have issued more than 35,000 Guatemalan consular ID cards at $27.5 a piece so far. Other countries that are planning similar programs include Peru, Honduras and Poland.
Critics of those ID cards said acceptance of consular ID cards might create national security issues as it encourages illegal immigration.
“Next we may see the Chinese or Egyptian governments doing the same thing,” said Steven Camarato, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies.
A native of Taipei, Taiwan, Larry Tung, a Brooklyn-based writer, teacher and video artist, is a frequent contributor to the Citizen
It refers to the $10,000 figure that triggers mandatory reports of potential money laundering, not the few hundred dollars that are wired by illegal aliens to their relatives in Mexico.
The $10,000 money-laundering reporting requirement has nothing to do with wiring $400 to a friend who is stranded in Europe.
You've made at least two false assertions in this thread:
First, "As a person who is a licensed broker, the requirement to have ID for any transactions is already the law."Go back and read the article at the beginning of this thread.Second, "THe store owner can be held accountable for money laundering. The laws currently exist."
We are not discussing the $10,000 money-laundering reporting requirement, not structuring, which it is the accusation that Rush Limbaugh withdrew $9,999 from his account to avoid triggering the money-laundering report by his bank.
We are discussing remesas, the few hundred dollars that Mexicans send to their relatives back in Mexico, using Western Union, MoneyGram, and a host of other wiring services.
Fact: There is no requirement to show an ID when wiring money overseas in the amount customarily sent by illegal aliens to Mexico.
And controls need to be in place to capture the data required to detect someone exceeding 10k.
Second, the quickest way to negate the effectiveness of the 10k rules is to have it apply to every dollar. The volume of the data will make is impossible to detect the few bad guys.
I see no reason to add more laws to those that should be more than sufficent to protect us. In fact the existing ones impose too much on privacy as it is.
I agree 100%.
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