Credit Cards to Illegal Immigrants? What’s Next?
There’s a lively debate going on over at BankerVision. James Gardner wrote a post regarding the efforts of Bank of America giving credit cards to illegal immigrants, which I wrote about previously here.
James points out that BoA is offering a service to a niche market, and actually doing it with good business sense. By pricing the product (credit cards) in such a way to cover risks, they are actually facilitating economic activity to a part of the economy that is basically hidden.
I respect his opinion, but I find it detached from what the real heart of the matter is, and that’s illegal immigrants shouldn’t be here in the first place.
Think of it, if we didn’t have the problem of people crossing the border illegally, we wouldn’t be having issues like businesses making the type of bad choices BoA is making. Not that they would be devoid of making bad choices, just making them on things that matter at least.
I have to disagree with another of his comments. He says, “I have to wonder, however, since these illegal immigrants are in the country anyway, if facilitating their economic activity in this visible and auditable way, might not be more positive than negative.” No, nothing positive could come out of the act of giving something to people who don’t respect our laws, who abuse our system to their benefit, who practically expect that they’re entitled to something they’re not. It only serves to slowly erode America’s way of life.
I’ll say it again, I’m not against immigrants of any culture. I am against illegal immigrants though. And that’s what the issue is. No matter what your argument is, no matter how many distractions are made to confuse the issue, it will always come down to this lowest common denominator: the fact that they have broken the law to get here.
[tags]illegal immigration, illegal immigrants, credit cards, bank of america[/tags]
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Rob O. | May 22, 2007 | Reply
So, in essence, BoA is giving these folks a blank check, right? After all, given that they are not legal citizens, just how much leverage does a bank have over them to follow the rules and/or pay the balance once debt has been accrued?
Mark | May 22, 2007 | Reply
Hi Rob, that’s basically the way I see it, too. I’ve even pointed out that to others who are in the financial industry and they still don’t get it. They’d rather see the wonders it will do for the economy. Rather short sighted if you ask me.
Thanks for dropping by!
cecilia | May 24, 2007 | Reply
I believe that illegal immigrants should be able to get credit cards. after all they play a big role in our economy by working on the minimum wage jobs. They come here to work as hard as any citizen and even sometimes harder because no matter the situation many are living well lifes without the governments help like many u.s. citizens do live of welfare.
Mark | May 24, 2007 | Reply
Hi Cecilia, thanks for sharing your side of this. As you might have guessed, I respectfully disagree with you. It sounds like you think illegal immigrants are entitled to things like credit cards. They are entitled to nothing more than a ticket home, at their expense. Pure and simple.
Granted, they do play a large role in our economy, but that’s no reason to allow them to stay and have others continue to cross our borders. Our economy would get along just fine without them. I don’t mean that as harsh as it may sound. All I’m saying is that the economy would be better off — American culture would be better off — if pockets of our society would not cater to those who would break the law to get here and live off the contributions of legal citizen (e.g., taxes and such).
I can’t say it often enough: these people came over illegally. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but that means they…are…criminals. There’s no ignoring that. The media and sympathizers , on the other hand, would like for you to do just that — ignore it. All other arguments simply drop dead in their tracks when this simple fact is brought to the spotlight.
Instead, we’re given distractions like, “Oh they do so much for us”, “No one else will take the kind of jobs they do”, “Let’s be compassionate to”. No, I’m sorry. I don’t buy that. They need to get in line like everybody else. Once they come her with a citizenship card in hand, THEN we’ll talk about their rights as U.S. citizens.
Rob O. | May 25, 2007 | Reply
Our government obviously isn’t going to ever have the gumption to deal with the illegal immigration issue, so I propose a different solution…
Take Mexico.
Yup, seize the country; divvy it up into a few more states; clean up the water; exploit the massive labor pool; tax the snot out of the tourism industry; and end the illegal immigration problem once & for all.
Sound extreme? Maybe not so much.
According to statistics released by Mexico’s Tourism Secretariat (Sectur), Mexico’s economy showed an unprecedented surge in ‘04 and their tourism industry was expected to exceed $10 million in 2005, with 70% percent of visitors coming from the U.S. Mexico is home to the world’s 7th-largest hotel industry. Add to that, the Mexican tourism industry attracted more than $2.29 billion in new investments last year, representing a 38.5% increase over the previous year’s figures. And by the end of 2006, Mexico was projected to have attracted $9 billion in new tourism investments.
So, we could squander several billion dollars on a useless border fence boondoggle or earn $9 billion in tourism investment income. Seems like easy math to me.
And that’s not even taking into account the vast income potential brought about with the recently completion of “La Entrada al Pacifico,” a massive commerce corridor between far west Texas’ Presidio and Mexico’s Pacific coast. After all, where do you think Dollar General (a.k.a. Wal-Mart, Jr.) is getting its inventory?
And just think about how dramatically land values would escalate if real estate barons began snapping up beachfront property in those new states… The profits from the real estate boom would be unimaginable — and the tax income could fund other vital infrastructure improvements in those new states.
So, what do ya think? Anyone else up for a land grab?
Mark | May 25, 2007 | Reply
LOL
That’s quite a unique approach to this problem. The thing is that if that were suggested by our government, then you’d have the illegal immigrants from that part of the world complaining about us trying to take over their economy/land and such.
But I do want to make it clear that I’m not singling out any particular group of illegal immigrants in my original post. No, I’m an equal opportunity illegal immigrant protester.