Source: FAIR, March 19, 2026
Seeks transparency and accountability on threats to financial integrity, national security
WASHINGTON—The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has launched an investigation into how U.S. banks and credit unions routinely allow illegal aliens to open accounts using foreign identification documents—without any requirement to verify U.S. citizenship or lawful presence.
Participation in America’s banking system is a privilege reserved for U.S. citizens and legal immigrants—not a loophole for those here illegally. Current lax Customer Identification Program (CIP) rules under the Bank Secrecy Act and PATRIOT Act have created a dangerous shadow population inside our financial institutions. FAIR’s new investigation will seek to deliver concrete findings and recommendations for Congress and the Trump administration—including mandatory citizenship verification, a ban on unreliable foreign documents, retroactive account audits, and the closure of accounts held by illegal aliens.
As part of the investigation, FAIR has submitted nine coordinated Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Federal Reserve Board, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Department of the Treasury.
The requests seek communications, policies, examination reports, enforcement actions, Suspicious Activity Reports, data concerning ITIN-only accounts, and records regarding the acceptance of foreign documents to receive financial services (including passports, Matrícula Consular cards, foreign national IDs). FAIR will analyze these records to expose the full scope of the problem, reveal the internal agency warnings that were ignored, and highlight the resulting risks of fraud, money laundering, and remittance abuse. We will release a comprehensive investigative report once agency responses are received and analyzed.
“Banking is not a right for illegal aliens—it is a privilege that demands strict accountability to protect the rule of law and national security,” said Dale Wilcox, FAIR’s executive director and general counsel. “These FOIAs should reveal how federal regulators have failed to close this dangerous loophole. With the Trump administration’s focus on lawful presence—including Executive Order 14159 and FinCEN’s FIN-2025-Alert003—now is the time to require real verification and shut down accounts opened by those who have no legal right to be here.”
“FAIR is committed to transparency and accountability on this critical issue,” said Mateo Forero, FAIR’s director of investigations. “By demanding these records, we will quantify the scale of foreign-ID and ITIN-only account abuse, uncover ignored internal warnings, and build an ironclad case for reforming KYC/CIP rules. Illegal aliens should not have access to the U.S. banking system, and our investigation will provide the evidence policymakers need to fix it.”
