“We are also looking at the possibility of offering unsecured credit cards to customers who may not have Social Security numbers,” Wells Fargo spokeswoman Mary Trigg said.
Bank of America said Tuesday that it was issuing credit cards to Spanish-speaking immigrants who may not have Social Security numbers, triggering complaints that the nation’s largest retail bank is tacitly endorsing illegal immigration.
The bank described the program as a pilot, limited for now to 51 branches in Los Angeles County, and said it could go national this year.
The credit cards are not aimed specifically at illegal immigrants, a bank spokeswoman said, but instead people who lack solid credit histories. Even so, the bank was bombarded with angry phone calls.
On Capitol Hill, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) accused the lender of aiding terrorists, while the Department of Homeland Security worried that the program could be exploited by criminals.
“At face value the program seems to be problematic,” said Russ Knocke, a department spokesman. “It seems to be lending itself to possibilities of perpetrating identity theft or creating more risk for money laundering.”
The bank’s program may be controversial, but it also vividly demonstrates that businesses view the country’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants not as lawbreakers but as customers.
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