Patriot Act cuts migrants' cash flow - Articles - CAIR - Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform

DELAND -- For 30 days, Guillermo Trinidad walked around with three paychecks he could not cash.

"I might as well have been broke," Trinidad said, after a Mexican store here -- which had been cashing his checks since January -- said it could not cash them any more. "She (the store owner) said the bank is not taking the checks."

The store had cashed checks for Trinidad, a 36-year-old migrant construction worker, even though he did not have any legal form of identification. As an undocumented [illegal] alien, Trinidad carries only a matricula consular, an ID issued by the Mexican government to its citizens in the United States.

Unbeknownst to Trinidad, he was feeling the effects of the USA Patriot Act, passed two weeks after the terrorist attacks in September 2001. The law requires financial institutions to monitor the accounts of check-cashing stores to combat money laundering and terrorism. Some banks have opted to stop accepting many third-party checks...

Bank of America loaned Ramiro Salgado, owner of Beth's Corner Store in DeLand, the initial $30,000 to start the check-cashing business...

On Oct. 12, the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network fined AmSouth Bank of Alabama $50 million after charging the bank with failing to report suspicious financial activity. Third-party checks were a significant part of the charges, Pruitt said.

Western Union, a check-cashing store that offers money-wiring services, was fined $8 million by the New York Banking Department in December 2002 for violating federal and state banking laws. The state charged Western Union was deficient in keeping records...