Believe In America.com

butterbean · Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 2271

Bank of America found itself at the center of the nation's immigration controversy following reports it's offering credit cards to illegal immigrants in Los Angeles.

In the wake of the media firestorm, the nation's second-largest and Tampa Bay's largest bank, told the Los Angeles Times it complies fully with all banking and antiterrorism laws governing customer identification, which permit the use of individual taxpayer identification numbers, or ITINs, issued by the Internal Revenue Service.

Critics say that it's too easy for undocumented immigrants to receive ITINs.

"At face value the program seems to be problematic," Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, told the Times. "It seems to be lending itself to possibilities of perpetrating identity theft or creating more risk for money laundering."

In the Los Angeles market test, BofA (NYSE: BAC) is offering credit cards to Spanish-speaking customers with no Social Security numbers, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The credit card offering, which features a $500 credit limit, requires applicants to have a checking account with the bank for three months without an overdraft, the newspaper added.

BofA reportedly tested the credit card program last year at five branches in Los Angeles and hopes to roll the program out nationally later this year.

As of June 30, the most recent date for which information is available, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) had 172 offices, $15.3 billion in deposits and a 22.7 percent market share in Tampa Bay, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

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http://sanantonio.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2007/02/12/daily35.html