Banks Profit from Illegal Immigration 2

Last year I wrote about how banks profit from illegal immigration by charging fees to wire money to and from Mexico... well now banks are lending money so illegal immigrants can buy houses!

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The banking industry is opening its doors to a controversial new market: illegal immigrants.

Despite heated political debate in Washington over illegal immigration in the United States, an increasing number of banks are seeing an untapped resource for growing their own revenue stream and contend that providing undocumented residents with mortgages will help revitalize local communities.

It's a win-win situation, they say.

Well, it's a win for banks and illegal immigrants, that's for sure, but they're both profiting off the enormous tax burden that illegal immigration places on citizens and legal residents. The article pays lip-service to illegal immigrants who pay income taxes, but c'mon, that's utterly absurd. Most American citizens cheat on their taxes, and anyone thinks that illegal immigrants are paying their fair share? Please. Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of illegal immigrants would be in the lowest tax bracket, meaning they get far more benefits than they pay for.

I sincerely hope that the government siezes these mortgage records and expels any illegal immigrants they find, and I further hope that these lending banks and their owners get hit with enormous losses because of their un-American practices.

BusinessWeek ran an article last month about how businesses are "Embracing Illegals", and not just banks.

At the same time, though, the fast-growing undocumented population is coming to be seen as an untapped engine of growth. In the past several years, big U.S. consumer companies -- banks, insurers, mortgage lenders, credit-card outfits, phone carriers, and others -- have decided that a market of 11 million or so potential customers is simply too big to ignore. It may be against the law for the Valenzuelas to be in the U.S. or for an employer to hire them, but there's nothing illegal about selling to them.

So with a wary eye on the heated political debate, business is targeting the Valenzuelas and millions of others who have entered the country illegally. Many companies do so more or less openly. Wells Fargo has half a million matrícula accounts, a majority of them, they acknowledge, opened by unauthorized aliens who lack regular residency or citizenship papers. At the Valenzuelas' branch, fully 80% of accounts are opened by matrícula holders. Blue Cross of California, whose parent, WellPoint Inc. (WLP ), is the nation's largest health insurer, sells health insurance to matrícula holders from company-staffed desks set up inside Mexican and Guatemalan consular offices in the U.S. Sprint Corp. (FON ) accepts such an I.D. for cell-phone contracts.

The problem isn't businesses providing services per se, it's that the federal government isn't punishing the illegals and the businesses who hire them. Businesses go where there's profit, and there's profit in illegal immigrants as long as our laws remain unenforced.

Daniel Is Right says that companies that provide services to illegal immigrants are taking blood money, citing the burden illegal immigrants place on schools and hospitals and the uncountable deaths that burden creates. The deaths are indirect, which is why they can't be counted, but they're certain nonetheless. And don't forget the costs imposed by illegal immigrants who drive without insurance.

(HT: Hispanic Trending.)