The US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Unit has asked banks to keep an eye out for signs of identity theft, payroll tax fraud and money laundering linked to the employment of people living in the country illegally, the latest move in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, the AP reports.The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an advisory on Friday instructing financial institutions to monitor for a series of potential “red flags” associated with payroll schemes involving unauthorized workers.The move follows an executive order signed by Trump in May requiring banks to take a closer look at the citizenship status of their customers.The order directs bank regulators and government agencies to identify signs that people without legal status are opening bank accounts or obtaining loans and credit cards.However, despite earlier reports that the White House was considering a mandatory requirement, the measure failed to require banks to collect citizenship information from all customers.Although the order does not call for a blanket ban on banking services, it is expected to discourage people living in the US illegally from engaging with the country’s financial system.Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said the administration “will not allow illegal aliens to abuse financial institutions to steal billions of dollars from hardworking American taxpayers.”“Schemes to pay illegal workers often depend on access to the US financial system, including US banks,” he said.Banks in the US have traditionally not collected information about the citizenship or immigration status of customers, meaning there are no reliable public estimates of the risks posed to the financial system by such customers.The banking industry had lobbied against proposals that would have made citizenship verification mandatory, arguing that such requirements would be costly and create significant administrative burden.The FinCEN advisory tells financial institutions to be alert to more than a dozen potential “red flags” that could indicate someone is living in the United States illegally. (AP)
