Maybe, yhe gov't can then deputize the bill collectors as INS agents when the illegals fall behind on their payments. Those guys are relentless and tenacious, and corporations certainly care more about securing their profits than our government seems to be about securing our borders.

lots of things get done here without social security numbers: Mortgages, personal loans, purchase of real estate, life insurance, purchase of cars, execution of wills, etc. It just costs a bit more.

There are billions of dollars floating around in the illegal communities, and not all of it goes back to the motherland in the form of remittances. Illegal immigrants make a lot of money. Often FICA, state and other taxes are not withheld from paychecks, enabling them to truly spend everything they make - not just what the government doesn't take in taxes. No capitalist worthy of the name would miss an opportunity to exploit that opportunity. Besides, you really don't expect the current administration to get serious about any laws being broken regarding white collar crimes and money lending. I guarantee you that if a stink is raised about this issue, the financial industry will simply have their lackeys in Congress rewrite the laws to suit them.

Really, Mr. Leonard, do you still believe in the tooth fairy?

"These people are coming here for quality of life"

Umm.. these people are being brought here by corporate interests in order to have a largely frightened, underpaid workforce taking the place of the previous workforce ---citizens and legal residents who understood their rights and understood workplace law, and who are not allowed to live 20 and 30 to one house.

I am disgusted at people who champion illegal immigration. It is aimed at one thing and one thing only --- destroying a labor force that is capable of demanding a decent living wage. Labor unions have been destroyed by state-sponsored infiltration of unions by criminal enterprises. (Oh - don't tell me any of you are under the impression the police, the courts and the politicians didn't know the mob was taking over unions? Mob goons who were taking over unions could have been arrested at any time, had it been in the interests of law enforcement to do so. But law enforcement was getting its orders from above - "let it happen. It's good for business.") Goodbye unions.

When high tech jobs came along, friends of mine went to the Silicon Valley and were making nice salaries -- until the corporations who employed them discovered it was a lot cheaper to import men fron India (particularly unmarried men) on H1B visas. The Indians worked for far less money and were willing to live thousands of miles away from their families, crowded together into rental apartments. My friends didn't have that option - they were already married with families and paying inflated mortgages on their small homes.

Then corporations pushed through legislation making outsourcing an overseas affair. Stop bringing the low-paid foreigners here. Instead, send the jobs overseas and pay hundreds of thousands of people monthly wages that wouldn't buy one week's worth of groceries here in the US.

Next came the open borders policy - corporations got politicians to agree to allow people to slip across the US border by the millions, while pretending to be horrified at "the problem" of illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is no problem for corporations or for politicians - it's a burden the American worker gets to bear. See jobs disappear overseas. Watch jobs formerly performed by legal residents (both US-born and legal immigrants) for a decent wage become solely the province of illegals who will do those jobs for 1/3 the previous salary. Again, it's ok for the illegals - they are allowed to live 20 and 30 to a household over here while sending money to their families back home. But legal residents don't have that option - their families are here in the US. They need to make a decent wage to keep a roof over their families heads here in areas where homes cannot be found for less than $300,000.

This is crap. It is the disenfranchisement of legal workers in the United States for the sake of top-heavy corporate profits. And I am sick and tired of knee-jerk liberalism automatially snickering at people who don't find the corporate-sponsored tidal wave of illegal workers to be a good thing.

It's not a good thing. It is destabilizing the workforce and it will destabilize families as more jobs disappear down into the black hole of domestic and overseas outsourcing. It is destabilzing the US economy at a time when the corporate-sponsored "administration" in Washington is digging us deeper and deeper into foreign debt so they can get tax-cuts to top-tier inheritors of wealth.

I don't happen to find that amusing.

Moira: Not really sure who's believing in the tooth fairy here: comparing the plights of white collar criminals to those of illegal immigrants with no ssns seems a little silly to me. Given that Bank of America’s actions have a direct impact on the current immigration debate as well as the terrorist financing and anti-money laundering debates, it would be surprising if BoA could just rewrite the laws.

Having said that, I think the whole thing is a great idea. First a credit card, then a credit history, then maybe down the road a bit, a mortgage. Then when the markets really develop, how about securing a mortgage here in the US for a home in Mexico or Colombia, where local interest rates are out of control (try 25% as compared to 6.5%). It sounds a little silly, but this is the American dream, and very few illegals have any access to it simply because they live in a cash economy. We all take credit cards for granted. Try renting a car without one.

As it stands, research shows that illegals spend something 15% to 20% of their incomes on financial services – using Western Union to send money home is outrageously expensive. At places like BoA or Citi, it’s free. Checking-cashing joints, they’re worse. Paying a 21% APR sucks, but starting out at a 21%, then building a credit history is the way you get to a 15%, then to a 10%. Also, once BoA shows the model works, then someone else comes in and undercuts their rates. This is what has been happening with Western Union – they used to charge up to 20% to send money home, now its more like 8%, because of competition.

Democratizing the financial industry is a good thing.