Posted on 02/20/2007 9:37:32 AM PST by NormsRevenge
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Jose Manuel Aparicio had come up with all kinds of ways to stash his construction job wages: He slipped bills between pages of books hidden in his bedroom closet and stuffed money into an old sock in his laundry. ...
Without a bank account, "somebody can steal it," said the 20-year-old, who came to the U.S. from Mexico three years ago. "That's it, my money is gone."
Then three months ago, Aparicio applied for a special debit card created for immigrants who don't have Social Security numbers, which are required to open savings or checking accounts. They're also for people who just don't trust banks.
A nonprofit worker center here called New Labor, which helps immigrants learn English and find jobs, in November became the first in the nation to offer the Sigo card — combining "go" with Spanish for "yes."
The center has distributed 300 cards. The program — affiliated with MasterCard — is underway at eight other worker centers across the country, including two in Los Angeles: the Pilipino Worker Center and the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California. Organizers hope to make it available to thousands of immigrants at 160 worker centers nationwide, ...
Janice Fine, a Rutgers University labor relations professor who helped create the program, said immigrants often felt intimidated by banks. ...
Last week, Bank of America announced a program to issue credit cards to Spanish-speaking immigrants who may not have Social Security numbers at 51 branches in Los Angeles County. Other major banks, including Wells Fargo and Citibank, have launched similar initiatives.
Critics have denounced such efforts to integrate illegal immigrants into the banking and credit world as aid to criminals, but Sigo organizers worry such offers by traditional banks will take advantage of low-income immigrants.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Do you ever get the sense it's just too late for this Country? Maybe the great experiment didn't take into account how stupid and lazy we'd all get and how much we'd take what we have for granted.
So then if I attempt to get an account without a SS number and I am refused. Doesn't that constitute national origin based discrimination?
so they want their free cake and eat it, too?at least they finally managed to use the "illegal" word in the story.
Buckley once asked Chambers to join the staff of the then new National Review in one of his letters expressing exorbitant hopes for the role the publication might play in human affairs.
Chambers answer, which Mr. Buckley called "a paragraph unmatched in the literature of supine gloom, even though finally resisting despair" was thus...
It is idle [he rebuked me] to talk about preventing the wreck of Western Civilization. It is already a wreck from within. That is why we can hope to do little more now than snatch a fingernail of a saint from the rack or a handful of ashes from the faggots, and bury them secretly in a flowerpot against the day, ages hence, when a few men begin again to dare to believe that there was once something else, that something else is thinkable, and needs some evidence of what it was, and the fortifying knowledge that there were those who, at the great nightfall, took loving thought to preserve the tokens of hope and truth.
I am beginning to share Chambers' sentiments in this regard.
ping
ping
ping
I know this is terrible, but we went to a buffet at a hotel in Laughlin, NV. As we were waiting for our table, I looked around and I almost started crying. 80% of the people were obese...not just overweight, but obese...fat and eating with plates of food overflowing, food on the floor. Of course this was in a casino and I thought, this is what we've become...fat and lazy and worshipping the almighty dollar. I am not lying to you when I told you I turned around and left.
When I opened my bank account I had to show a social security number because they had to run a credit check to make sure I didn't have any hotchecks or owe any fees to another bank before they would open the account. I guess there are two sets of rules for citizens and non-citizens. It sounds like discrimination to me.
I 100,000 or so legal Americans went to these banks, signed up for these accounts without a ss number and with a false address, then this practice would endly instantly.....
Thanks for the info.
I wonder what the founder of the original BofA , AP Giannini, might have to say about this latest offering.
Thank you for the information. This is the first time I've seen the requirements for the card set out.
If the card pilot that is open to 'illegal immigrants' is not targeted to illegal immigrants; why does BofA accept the matricula?
no matter the cost to the rest of us.
I realize that a lot of people are stockholders and account holders in BoA....but, I am not, never will be after this. BoA just dropped from my radar screen.
It would make this old heart flutter to think that witholding my business from BoA would topple the whole rotten mess, but alas...it ain't true, and will never be true. We can only hope and pray that many people would pull out of doing any kind of business with BoA, and leave them to the basement dealings with illegals.
May the gods of the copybook smite them mightly, and bring a once proud financial institution back to its senses.
Just for kicks, I think I'll go down and try to open a new account without any social security number. When they ask me why, I'll mention the need to hide money. When they refuse me, I can sue for racial discrimination (white non-Hispanic European male).
Oh, and I'll demand the paperwork in English!
OK, but not having credit does not mean you don't have a social security number.
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