Fair enough. I respectfully disagree, though.
Barney Frank and George W. Bush are allies in this.
They always have been.
Anti-matrícula proposal defeated; financial institutions can continue accepting consular ID's:
In a vote of 222 to 177, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan amendment, H.Amdt. 754, introduced by Reps. Michael Oxley (R-OH), Barney Frank (D-MA), Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Ed Pastor (D-AZ), and Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX) to strike the so-called Culberson amendment that would have prohibited the Treasury Dept. from implementing regulations that allow financial institutions to accept matrícula consular identification cards as part of a valid customer identification program under the USA PATRIOT Act...
In countering Culberson’s allegations that the FBI and the Justice Dept. were opposed to the bipartisan amendment to preserve the use of matrícula consular cards, Bachus presented a letter for the record written by Deputy Atty. Gen. James B. Comey and addressed to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. The letter, dated Sept. 14, 2004, stated:
The Department of Justice fully supports the Administration’s current policy under the USA PATRIOT Act that requires banks and other financial institutions to establish reasonable procedures for the identification and verification of new account holders, which is set forth in regulations of the Department of the Treasury. Therefore the [Justice] Department supports the Oxley-Frank-Kolbe amendment to H.R. 5025 that preserves these regulations. . . . The Department of Justice, including the FBI, continue[s] to work closely with the Treasury Department on this and other issues related to halting all financing of terrorists.
In the final roll call vote, 49 Republicans supported the Oxley-Frank-Kolbe-Pastor-Hinojosa amendment and 16 Democrats opposed it. This legislative victory was a joint effort by financial institutions, immigrants’ rights groups, consumer groups, and many others who worked in coalition to defeat, once again, efforts to limit the acceptance of consular ID cards by banks, credit unions, thrifts, and other financial entities.