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#1636825 - 12/08/11 02:29 PM How do you determine legal immigrant status?
complyyes Offline
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Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 51
Midwest
We recently learned that a customer is an illegal immigrant. At account opening, we verified the customer by the current state issued driver's license and the SSN was verified as matching the name. However, we recently learned that the individual is here illegally. How do other banks verify? What do other banks do? Do you exit the banking relationship?

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#1636830 - 12/08/11 02:38 PM Re: How do you determine legal immigrant status? complyyes
BC78a Offline
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BC78a
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 311
New York
Many Banks will bank an illegal alien. Your job is to ID the individual, and not determine his/her legal status. If you find out they are illegal, you should follow your Bank’s policy on reporting them.
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#1636859 - 12/08/11 03:38 PM Re: How do you determine legal immigrant status? complyyes
A_G Online
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It still blows my mind that the States say one has a right to drive (and therefore the right to what most will accept as "official ID") when that person doesn't even have a right to be in this country! crazy

::gets off soapbox::
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#1636868 - 12/08/11 03:46 PM Re: How do you determine legal immigrant status? A_G
BC78a Offline
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BC78a
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 311
New York
Since they will drive, with or without a license, would you rather they have a license, and pass the test, or not have a license?
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#1636886 - 12/08/11 03:57 PM Re: How do you determine legal immigrant status? BC78a
Purex Offline
100 Club
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 181
South
I would rather they not come over here at ALL if they are going to do it by illegal means! Just saying!

::gets off my soapbox: HeHe
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#1636898 - 12/08/11 04:11 PM Re: How do you determine legal immigrant status? Purex
BrendaC Offline
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BrendaC
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,029
Sweet Home AL
One of my primary concerns regarding banking an illegal alien is understanding how to validate the true identity of the individual.

Identifying aliens properly should involve review of government-issued documents such as passports, visas (when applicable) for NRAs along with U.S. issued Resident Alien cards for resident aliens. There are other documents which are useful and logical for aliens with permission to work, such as a Social Security card.

Whether you choose to utilize documents such as Matricula Consular Cards is up to the bank, but your procedures and policies should be clear to ensure you staff knows exactly what they are allowed to utilize to establish the identity of a non-U.S. person.

Questions to ask when deciding how you want to handle:
1) Will we bank non-resident aliens? If so, what will we accept as ID?
2) Will we bank resident aliens? What will we accept as ID?
3) Will we bank any individual that cannot produce required ID? If so how will they be identified?
4) If an alien is obviously working, but has no SSN, will we bank him/her?
5) Do we have process in place to follow up on expired W-8BEN's for NRA's with no U.S. TIN? Be sure staff is trained on how to docment NRA on W-8BEN.
6) Do we have appropriate fields to ID aliens in our database (country of origin, country of residency, ID documentation fields, W-8BEN expiration date, etc.)
7) Do we have processes in place to idenitfy customers subject to 1042S reporting?

Just a few things to think about.
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