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  • My question is , why don't these people have bank accounts?
    by Krypto26
  • This article is repeating a transparently false framing as the truth. This wasn't a law about cartel money laundering, which doesn't happen near the border anyway. Money laundering at scale happens in the global market and always has.

    The clear purpose of the regulation was exactly the "side effect" detailed in the article: hurting immigrant communities that maintain ties across the border. And it worked. It does no one any good to pretend otherwise.

    by ajross
  • It surprises me how much Americans don't understand how deeply the cartel is in every transaction. Yes, sending money to Grandma to pay for a car is funding the cartel who probably got paid to make the car available. Grandma may even pay small direct bribes to the cartel just to be able to live her life.

    Either all of Mexico can move to the US (probably not a winning solution) or we can make Mexico a safe and excellent country again, and that means getting rid of the cartel.

    And yes, other countries have their issues too and we should help stabilize those countries as well.

    If the Mexican government can fix their cartel issue, we can go back to normal remittances. Until then the US will make policy choices to resolve problems.

    As always, the salt of the earth people will pay the cost for politicians being bad at things.

    by vorpalhex
  • > a violation of the fourth amendment that protects the rights of people against unreasonable searches and seizures

    So there exist juridical interpretations that call monitoring low value money transfer «unreasonable searches and seizures»? This is immensely interesting. Does anyone have further info?

    by mdp2021
  • One might as well say "the surgeon tried to cut out the cancer; took out some healthy tissue". Yeah, that's how it goes. The existence of side effects is not convincing as a reason not to do things. The objective is to get results while minimizing undesirable side effects, but the desirable amount of side effects is not zero.
    by arjie
  • I'd say the law has achieve exactly the effect it intended.
    by Aeolun
  • We have similar problems in the UK. Lots of extra paperwork for small businesses and individuals, very little impact on big crime that was supposed to be the target. Just opening a bank account can be a pain, and more so if you are living abroad (whether a citizen or not).
    by graemep

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