Articles - CAIR - Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform

...First Data, based in Greenwood Village, earns billions of dollars a year from its international Western Union money transfer business...

First Data employees have formed a political action committee that is funding pro-immigration candidates, including Tancredo's Democratic opponent in the fall election.

The political action highlights how First Data, once content to remain a behind-the-scenes player, is strategically and openly inserting itself into the immigration debate.

First Data is Colorado's biggest company by market capitalization... It's the world's largest provider of money transfers - through its Western Union subsidiary - with 188,000 agent locations in 195 countries.

In March, [First Data Corp. chief executive Charlie] Fote spoke at the National Press Club and unveiled a new $10 million First Data Empowerment Fund to help immigrant communities and foster an "enlightened" discussion of immigration...

Fote is personally hosting a series of immigration reform forums across the country, including sessions in Chicago on July 21 and in Denver on July 22...

Letters to the editor in response to the article

Re: "Border skirmish; Rep. Tancredo's proposals for immigrant remittances draw First Data Corp. into public policy debate," June 27 business news story.

The Post's article contrasts Congressman Tom Tancredo's views on our disastrous immigration policies with the polar-opposite views of Charlie Fote, the CEO of First Data Corp.

Tancredo designs immigration policy not on the money interests of a single company in his district but on what is clearly best, financially and otherwise, for the United States. Are our elected representatives in Washington not sworn to uphold our national interests?

With Tancredo, the collective interests of his constituents and of all Americans come first.

With Fote, making money obviously trumps our national welfare. "We will (politically) support," he told The Post, "the individual who we believe best reflects the interests of our business and this district."

There's money in "them thar hills." Charlie Fote wants to keep it there; he wants to keep on transmitting $30 billion a year for Latin American workers, here legally or illegally, to their relatives in Latin America. Tancredo's proposal to Congress is simply that U.S. foreign aid "be offset by the money that workers in the U.S. send abroad." How can any reasonably minded American citizen be opposed to that?

The Post story tells us that Tancredo "built his political career on ideas to control immigration." Not true. His ideas and interests, as a Colorado state representative, as the regional representative for higher education, and for three terms now as a Congressman, are as broad as America itself.

I see by the comments of First Data Corp. CEO Charlie Fote that First Data is now in the immigration business. First Data has even formed their employees into an immigration booster club. Never mind that the past 15 years have seen the largest mass immigration in U.S. history, that our borders are being overrun with thousands of illegals everyday, that our schools are overcrowded, and that our social services are groaning. While Fote and the greed crowd at First Data line their pockets, the rest of us pick up the other social costs through our tax donations.

I'm sorry to hear that Rep. Tancredo's excellent policy proposal to tax immigrant remittances is being challenged by the powerful First Data Corp.

After all, $30 billion annually is lost to the U.S. economy in the cash sent to Latin American countries by immigrants, many of whom are living and working here illegally. A tax at the point of money transfer could supply much-needed funds to ameliorate ever-so-slightly the enormous costs of illegal aliens, namely free medical care, housing subsidies, food stamps, schooling for foreign children and criminal incarceration.

Some of the remittance money has been earned under the table and has bypassed the legally required payments to Social Security, workers' compensation, health insurance and other social safety net programs. For example, a 2002 study found that up to 28 percent of workers in Los Angeles County are paid in cash. No wonder state and local governments are cutting services to citizens.

The CEO of First Data, Charles Fote, typifies today's corporate leaders, who believe that mere profits in the millions of dollars are not enough: in addition, the taxpayer must be squeezed for the final ounce of flesh in terms of subsidizing immigrants and illegal aliens. In that way, foreigners have more cash available to send as remittances and First Data's profits from money transfers are increased.

Sadly, corporate responsibility to the community is no longer in the vocabulary of highly paid CEOs like Fote. His advocacy of illegal aliens over citizens is an additional hypocrisy.

Finally, a corporate leader has come out in the open with his contempt for our nation and its immigration laws. With chief executives such as Charlie Fote and corporations such as First Data Corp. promoting and abetting illegal immigration, we will not have a cohesive nation for long.

Article

Border skirmish - Rep. Tancredo's proposals for immigrant remittances draw First Data Corp. into public policy debate

Letters to the editor in response to the article