In What Sense Are Illegals Illegal?

On Thursday, the Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a joint statement that cautions banks and other lenders against “discriminating” against borrowers on the basis of immigration status. These agencies admit that no such prohibition is explicit in the relevant statutes, but nevertheless, banks should beware of federal enforcement action:

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Department of Justice (collectively, the agencies) jointly issue this statement1 to assist creditors and borrowers in understanding the potential civil rights implications of a creditor’s consideration of an individual’s immigration status under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). ECOA does not expressly prohibit consideration of immigration status, and, as explained further below, a creditor may consider an applicant’s immigration status when necessary to ascertain the creditor’s rights regarding repayment. However, creditors should be aware that unnecessary or overbroad reliance on immigration status in the credit decisioning process, including when that reliance is based on bias, may run afoul of ECOA’s antidiscrimination provisions and could also violate other laws.

The statement goes on and on, always couched in terms of “immigration status.” For example:

[W]hile ECOA and Regulation B do not expressly prohibit consideration of immigration status, they do prohibit creditors from using immigration status to discriminate on the basis of national origin, race, or any other protected characteristic.

“Immigration status” could simply refer to legal aliens who apply for loans or mortgages, but that phrase is usually used to refer to illegal immigrants. Commentators, as far as I can tell, have universally interpreted this statement as a warning to banks and other lenders not to “discriminate” against people whose very presence in this country is illegal. Given the lack of any qualification to the phrase “immigration status,” and the common meaning of that phrase, I think that interpretation is correct. The fact that the statement does not even bother to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants is telling.

So, to recap: In many states, illegal immigrants can get driver’s licenses. All states are required to respect those licenses. Illegal immigrants are educated in our schools and receive health care, more often than not at taxpayer expense. Illegal immigrants vote legally in some municipal elections, and an unknown percentage of our millions of illegal immigrants are already voting in state and national elections, contrary to our election laws. Millions of illegals are being processed at the southern border, and our government has zero intention of enforcing our immigration laws by sending them back where they came from. And now, we are told that illegals must be given equal access to loans, bank accounts and credit cards.

So there isn’t much left of the illegality that comes with sneaking across the southern border. The Biden administration, with help from blue states, has effectively rewritten–or, more accurately, repealed–the nation’s immigration laws. They had no legal power to do this. Congress never voted to abolish our immigration laws, nor would it. The acceptance of illegal immigration is opposed by an overwhelming majority of Americans, but we never had a chance to vote on it.

This is perhaps the clearest indication of the fact that the cabal that controls America has zero regard for democracy, for democratic processes, or for the views of most Americans.