Thoughts on Matricula Consular Cards, Bank Accounts and Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Is there a connection between Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the rush to provide bank accounts to undocumented aliens? I want to state, up front, that I don’t know the answer to that question. However, the picture that I am about to paint suggests that this question deserves closer attention.
The Situation: Bank of America & Wells Fargo Bank
In February, 2007, Bank of America announced it would allow Mexican Matricula Consular cards as an acceptable form of primary identification to open new banking accounts. While this made the news, this practice has in fact been gaining momentum for several years. For example, back in November, 2001, Wells Fargo Bank, along with the Consulate General of Mexico, made a joint announcement of a similar program. (See “Wells Fargo to Accept Matricula Consular Card As Identification For New Account Openings” Accessed 3/22/07 at www.wellsfargo.com Read the article. ) Wells Fargo Bank is headquartered in San Francisco – a city which lies at the heart of the Congressional District represented by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
It is well known that Speaker Pelosi has led the charge to allow illegal aliens to use the Mexican Matricula Consular cards as a form of identification. The question is why, and is there any connection between the Speaker’s efforts and the recent actions of banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America?
Pelosi Gets Approval to Accept the Mexican Matricula Consular Cards
We begin our story on Jan. 3, 2003. On that day, Pelosi issued a press release titled “Statement on Matricula Consular Identification Card.” In pertinent part, this is what her statement said:
“I am pleased to announce that individuals carrying the updated version of the Mexican Consulate-issued identification card with photo, ‘Matricula Consular de Alta Seguridad’ (MCAS - Matricula Consular), will now have access to the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Courthouse at 450 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco. … I am grateful to the United States Marshals Service and the General Services Administration — the agencies responsible for security at the Federal Building — for working with my office on the acceptance of the Matricula Consular. I also wish to thank the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, La Raza Centro Legal, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, and other community leaders for working with my staff on this important matter.” (Accessed 3/22/07 at www.house.gov Read the article. )
Note that she thanked the U.S. General Services Administration, among others, for working with her office to accomplish this. However, that same organization had, at about the same time as her press release, banned the use of those cards.
U.S. Intelligence Officals Warn Against Use of Matricula Consular Cards
In his September, 2003 policy paper #144, National Taxpayers’ Union Policy Analyst Jim Tyrell wrote:
“Despite the fact that the General Services Administration (GSA) has barred the use of Mexican ID cards temporarily, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) instructed administrators at a federal building in San Francisco to accept the Mexican issued ID cards from immigrants as valid identification. … Rep. Pelosi justifies her actions by indicating immigrants need to get to Internal Revenue Service offices to obtain taxpayer identifications numbers to begin working, despite the fact they may be in the country illegally, and are obtaining U.S. identification with widely recognized illegal and foreign cards. “ (Accessed 3/22/07 at http://www.ntu.org/ Read the article. )
Speaker (then Minority Leader) Pelosi must have known about GSA’s concerns back in early 2003; yet in spite of this knowledge, she pushed for the use of these cards for identification purposes anyway. Surely she was familiar with the issues raised by Mr. Tyrell and others. Another prominent intelligence expert was Mr. Steve McGraw, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Office of Intelligence. Testifying on June 26, 2003 before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims on Consular ID Cards, Mr. McGraw made the following statement:
“The U.S. Government has done an extensive amount of research on the Matricula Consular, to assess its viability as a reliable means of identification. The Department of Justice and the FBI have concluded that the Matricula Consular is not a reliable form of identification, due to the non-existence of any means of verifying the true identity of the card holder. … It is our understanding that as many as 13 states currently accept the Matricula Consular for the purpose of obtaining a drivers’ license. Once in possession of a driver’s license, a criminal is well on his way to using the false identity to facilitate a variety of crimes, from money laundering to check fraud. And of course, the false identity serves to conceal a criminal who is already being sought by law enforcement. Individuals have been arrested with multiple Matricula Consular cards in their possession, each with the same photograph, but with a different name.” (Accessed 3/22/07 at www.fbi.gov Read the article. )
Banks See Market for “Un-Banked” Illegal Aliens using Pay-Day Lending Outlets.
When Mexican immigrants and illegal aliens come to the US to work, they often use wire services to send money home to their families. In 2003, the US Treasury estimated that this activity, called “the remittance market” does over $13 billion in business annually. For the most part, companies like Western Union and Moneygram have served this market. These same people also make use of what are called “payday lenders” to cash checks, since they don’t have their own bank accounts.
It would seem that a $13 billion dollar market might be hard for some businesses to pass up.
Could the reason Speaker Pelosi was pushing this forward have anything to do with efforts by Wells Fargo Bank, the Bank of America and other financial institutions in the San Francisco area to create a marketing channel to the growing illegal alien population in California? Remember, in addition to thanking the GSA for helping make sure the Mexican Consulate-issued identification card would be accepted at the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Courthouse, she also thanked “San Francisco Board of Supervisors, La Raza Centro Legal, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, and other community leaders”.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Bank On San Francisco
In late 2005, the political elite of San Francisco, lead by newly elected Treasurer Jose Cisneros, worked to create the Bank on San Francisco program. The stated reason was to focus “on a very serious problem—that of predatory check cashing and payday loan companies, which have grown over 1,000 percent in the last ten years.” Working with Wells Fargo Bank and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Cisneros said:
“For that reason we have launched the Bank on San Francisco Initiative, where we will partner with banks and credit unions to offer the un-banked really, truly affordable banking products, so that they can start to enter the mainstream of financial services.” ( “Joe Cisneros Sworn in as SF Treasurer”
Accessed 3/22/07 at www.sfbaytimes.com Read the article. )
It is true that pay day loan providers charge high interest rates – but that’s because the people accessing the loans are high credit risks. But, by using the idea that the recipients of the loans are poor, innocent people avoids the security risk question – not to mention all the American citizens who can’t get a loan due to their credit scores.
Is There A Plan To Role This Program Out Nationwide?
San Franciso was not the only place they wanted to role out this program. A case study, funded with grants by the Walter & Elise Haas fund, and the Levi Strauss Foundation, was written to help other cities wishing to allow banks to use the Mexican Matricula Consular ID cards to obtain bank accounts. Researcher Anne Anne Stuhldreher, a Fellow with the New America Foundation, wrote the following:
“Bank on San Francisco was launched in September 2006. San Francisco is the first city in the country to launch a comprehensive initiative to bring its ‘unbanked’ residents into the financial mainstream. This case study describes why and how Bank on San Francisco was started. It is written for individuals in other cities who may be considering similar initiatives.” (Accessed 3/22/07 at www.cfed.org Read the article. )
What Role Does Speaker Pelosi Play?
So, once again, one must ask: Why is Speaker Pelosi supporting this? What benefits do her political friends and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors receive by shifting business away from pay day lenders to these financial institutions like Wells Fargo Bank, Bank of America and similar corporations? And why has Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi cooperated with members of the Government of Mexico to help make this happen?
I honestly don’t know. Maybe there’s a very good, honest, non-politically, non-financially motivated reason for why she has supported this. Then again, perhaps not.
Hopefully, an investigative reporter from the San Francisco area can pick these questions up and supply some answers.