Justice
Department Files Statement of Interest in Judicial Watch’s Lawsuit to
Compel Oregon to Clean Voter Rolls

The U.S. Department of Justice
filed a statement
of interest in our lawsuit that calls on Oregon’s secretary of state
to make “a reasonable effort to remove” the registrations of ineligible
registrants from the voter rolls as required by federal law (Judicial
Watch, et al. v. The State of Oregon et al. (No. 6:24-cv-01783)).
U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. McShane set a
hearing in the case for June 18 at 10:00 a.m.
We applaud the
Trump Justice Department’s decision to join our effort to expose dirty
voter rolls
in Oregon. Judicial Watch, for years, has done the heavy lifting
alone.
The National
Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires states to “conduct a general
program that makes a reasonable effort to remove” from the official voter
rolls “the names of ineligible voters” who have died or changed
residence. The law requires registrations to be cancelled when voters fail
to respond to address confirmation notices and then fail to vote in the
next two general federal elections. Judicial Watch’s lawsuit alleges
Oregon’s voting rolls are among the worst maintained in the
nation.
In a Justice Department press
release Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet
Dhillon said:
“Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections
in Oregon are conducted fairly, accurately, and without fraud…. States
have specific obligations under the list maintenance provisions of the
NVRA, and the Department of Justice will vigorously enforce those
requirements.”
Our lawsuit pointed out that the federal “NVRA
supersedes and preempts any Oregon law or practice” that claimed to limit
or delegate the state’s obligations under
federal law. The Justice Department’s statement
of interest explains, “This case presents important questions
regarding enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act,” adding,
“Congress has vested the Attorney General with authority to enforce the
NVRA on behalf of the United States.” The statement takes the same
position as Judicial Watch when it argues that “[b]y its plain terms, the
NVRA identifies one entity, the state, that is required to carry out
obligations for voter registration administration[.]” The Justice
Department focuses on the state’s obligation to make voter registration
lists available to Judicial Watch and the public, as federal law
requires.
We filed the lawsuit
in October 2024 to enforce basic voter list maintenance provisions under
Section 8 of the NVRA after uncovering
a broad failure to clean up voter rolls in dozens of Oregon
counties.
In 2018, the
Supreme Court confirmed
that such removals are mandatory.
Judicial Watch’s lawsuit argues
that Oregon’s voter rolls contain large numbers of old, inactive
registrations; and that 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties removed few or no
registrations as required by federal election law. Judicial Watch asserts
that Oregon and 35 of its counties had overall registration rates exceeding
100%; and that Oregon has the highest known inactive registration rate of
any state in the nation. In combination, all of these facts show that
Oregon is failing to remove inactive registrations pursuant to Section
8(d)(1)(B) of the NVRA. The suit was
filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oregon,
Eugene Division, to compel the defendants to comply with their voter list
maintenance obligations under Section 8 of the National Voter Registration
Act of 1993 (NVRA).
In April 2025, we announced
that our analysis and use of voter registration lists has led to lawsuits
and legal actions under the NVRA that have resulted in the removal
of five
million names from voter rolls in nearly a dozen states and localities
over the last several years.
We are a national leader in voting
integrity and voting rights.
In March 2025, we sent a notice
letter to Lt. Governor Deidre M. Henderson, notifying her that Utah is
currently in violation of the NVRA’s public disclosure
requirements. The notice letter warns of a lawsuit after 90 days if the
issues are not resolved
In May 2024, we sued
California to clean up its voter rolls. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of
Judicial Watch and the Libertarian Party of California, similarly asks the
court to compel California to make “a reasonable effort” to remove
ineligible registrants from the rolls as required by federal law.
In
July 2024, we asked
a federal court to reject the State of Illinois’ motion to dismiss
Judicial Watch’s lawsuit to compel the state to clean up its voter rolls.
The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern
District of Illinois, on behalf of Judicial Watch, the nonprofit
organizations Illinois
Family Action and Breakthrough
Ideas, and Carol J. Davis, a lawfully registered Illinois
voter.
Judicial Watch Sues Pentagon on Reported Covid
Infections at Wuhan Games
We’re still uncovering the truth
about Wuhan and Covid.
We filed a FOIA lawsuit
against the U.S. Department of Defense for all records
regarding U.S. military personnel possibly contracting Covid-19 in October
2019 during the World Military Games in Wuhan, China (Judicial
Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Defense (No.
1:25-cv-01807)).
Our lawsuit cites a December 2022 report
issued by the Pentagon titled “Report to the Committees on Armed Services
of the Senate and House of Representatives: 2019 World Military Games”
which states that seven “service members who attended the games exhibited
COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms” during the time surrounding their
attendance at the games.
The report was not made public until April
2025, after former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) asked the Defense
Department for a full investigation. While the report had been provided to
the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in December 2022, the Biden
administration apparently suppressed it.
We sued the Defense
Department after it failed to respond to an April 28, 2025, FOIA request
for:
All reports, studies, memoranda, and/or analyses
produced by or sent to the Joint Chiefs, Secretary of
Defense, and/or Deputy Secretary of Defense related to US military
personnel contracting a SARS-like or Covid-19-like virus at the Wuhan Games
in October 2019.
In the 2021 documentary “What Really
Happened in Wuhan,” Sky News Australia reported
that a month after evidence emerged that the virus leaked from the Wuan
Institute of Virology, the city of Wuhan hosted the Military Games, with
more than 9,000 athletes from around the
world in attendance. “The opening ceremony was held on October 18, 2019,
and two weeks later, athletes begun returning home to more than 100
countries.”
The National Institutes of Health’s National Library
of Medicine published a January 2021 article,
“The impact of the World Military Games on the COVID-19 pandemic,”
which cites a study published
on January 19, 2021 that “examined the hypothesis that the large
gathering in a pandemic epicenter was a factor in the spread of COVID-19
disease.”
Let’s cut to the chase: the Pentagon should release
each and every document about military personnel possibly being infected by
Covid in 2019 in Wuhan, China – months before the public learned of
Covid. The time for FOIA games is over.
We are the national leader in
exposing key information about fraud, abuse, and government secrets
concerning Covid-19. In the book “Rights
and Freedoms in Peril: An Investigative Report on the Left’s Attack on
America” Tom Fitton examines the impact of Covid-19 related policies
on electoral processes, and expresses concerns about the potential for
increased voter fraud and chaos.
In May 2025, we received records
from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that reveal its plans
to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for 17 million healthcare employees and
that only one of 4,682 claims for injuries and deaths due to Covid-19
“countermeasures” at the time was compensated.
Records uncovered
in 2024 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) through a FOIA
request showed an April 2020 email exchange with several officials in the
bureau’s Newark Field Office referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National
Institute of
Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grant to the Wuhan Institute of
Virology (WIV) in China as including “gain-of-function
research” which “would leave no signature of purposeful human
manipulation.”
Records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) showed that a Pfizer study surveyed 23 people in 2021 to gauge
reactions to its Covid vaccine booster before
asking the FDA to approve it.
Records
from the Health and Human Services included the initial grant application
and annual reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from EcoHealth
Alliance, describing the aim of its work with the Wuhan Institute of
Virology to create mutant viruses “to better predict the capacity of our
CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people.”
Health and Human Services
records included emails
of then-Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins
showing a British physicians’
group recommended the use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat
Covid-19.
Records
from Health and Human Services regarding data Moderna submitted to the Food
and Drug Administration on its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine indicated a
“statistically significant” number of rats were born with skeletal
deformations after their mothers were injected with the vaccine. The
documents also revealed Moderna elected not to conduct a number of standard
pharmacological studies on the laboratory test animals.
Food and Drug
Administration records detailed pressure
for Covid-19 vaccine booster approval and use.
NIH records revealed
an FBI “inquiry” into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant
tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also show National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were
concerned about
“gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in
2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth
Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of
gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat
coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.
HHS records revealed that from 2014 to
2019, $826,277
was given
to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the
NIAID.
NIAID records showed that it gave
nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus
emergence in bats and was the NIH’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab
itself. The records also included an email from the vice director of the
Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for
decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.
HHS records
included an “urgent
for Dr. Fauci” email chain, citing ties between the Wuhan lab and the
taxpayer-funded EcoHealth
Alliance. The government emails also reported that the foundation of
U.S. billionaire Bill Gates worked closely with the Chinese government to
pave the way for Chinese-produced medications to be sold outside China and
help “raise China’s voice of governance by placing
representatives from China on important international counsels as high
level commitment from China.”
HHS records included a grant
application for research involving the coronavirus that appeared to
describe “gain-of-function”
research involving RNA extractions from bats, experiments on viruses,
attempts to develop a chimeric virus and efforts to genetically manipulate
the full-length bat SARSr-CoV WIV1 strain molecular clone.
HHS
records showed the State Department and NIAID knew immediately in January
2020 that
China
was withholding Covid data, which was hindering risk assessment and
response by public health officials.
University of Texas Medical
Branch (UTMB) records
showed the former director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the
University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Dr.
James W. Le Duc warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology of potential investigations into the Covid issue by
Congress.
HHS records regarding biodistribution studies and related
data for the Covid-19 vaccines showed a key component of the vaccines
developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were
found outside
the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and
ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.
Records
from the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) revealed safety
lapses and violations at U.S. biosafety laboratories that
conduct research on dangerous agents and toxins.
HHS records
included emails
between National Institutes of Health (NIH) then-Director Francis
Collins and Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID), about hydroxychloroquine and
Covid-19.
HHS records
showed that NIH officials tailored
confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health
Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential”
Covid-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.
Fauci emails
included his approval of a press release supportive of China’s response
to the 2019 novel coronavirus.
Our
four-part
documentary regarding the coordinated effort by the government and Big
Tech to censor and suppress information on topics such as Hunter Biden’s
laptop, Covid-19, and election debates is available here.
FBI’s
Patel and Bongino: Hostages of the Deep State?
As many
Americans do, we
look at President Trump’s FBI and wonder what’s going on. Too many
questions arise about the performance of its leaders. Micah Morrison, our
chief investigative reporter, takes
a look in Investigative Bulletin.
Kash
Patel and Dan Bongino have been stalwart allies of the conservative
movement—and good friends of Judicial Watch—for many years. Judicial
Watch applauded their appointments as director and deputy director of the
FBI. Expectations were high. In a
statement following Patel’s confirmation as FBI director, JW
President Tom Fitton noted that Patel has “his work set out for him.”
He called on Patel to “bring transparency and accountability back
to an agency that became irredeemably corrupt and the tip of the spear in
unfettered lawfare against any American seen as a threat to the ruling
class. From sitting on Hunter Biden’s laptop in order to influence the
2020 election, the raid of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and the
censorship of Americans, to the targeting of traditional Catholics, the FBI
has shown itself as a tainted domestic and intelligence
service.”
Veteran Washington reformers
like Fitton understand that Patel’s time for true change is limited. The
Deep State, the forces of inertia, and the political calendar are all
working against him. These days, as well, conservative insiders are alarmed
by mounting signs that Patel and Bongino have been taken hostage by the
Deep State consensus and are failing to bring meaningful change to the
FBI.
An early warning sign came in April
when Patel plucked Steven Jensen from exile in Columbia, South Carolina,
and appointed him head of the FBI’s powerful Washington Field Office.
Conservatives were aghast. As chief of the Domestic Terrorism Section at
FBI headquarters in 2020 and 2021, Jensen led a highly damaging
law-enforcement campaign against the January 6 protestors, raising the
specter of domestic terrorism.
Jensen was
“a true believer in
Joe Biden’s domestic terrorism narrative,” retired FBI supervisor
George Hill told
Miranda Devine of the New York Post, “…that every Trump supporter in
and around Capitol Hill [on January 6] was an insurrectionist, a white
supremacist and probably violent.”
Jensen
“set up the infrastructure for that [domestic terrorism narrative],”
Hill told Devine. “He made the decisions, set up the mechanisms whereby
all the cases would be opened around the country to give the picture that
this was a nationwide problem. Previously it would
have been opened up [as one case with multiple suspects] in Washington —
but by opening it that way, you allowed [then-FBI Director] Chris Wray to
sit in Congress and say domestic terrorism was a nationwide
problem.”
Patel and Bongino vigorously
defended Jensen. Appearing on Fox
News, they urged patience. “Just wait,” Bongino said, “and
you’ll see. Nothing we’re doing—nothing—is by
accident.”
Two months later, we’re still
waiting.
Meanwhile, more concerns have
surfaced. Media
reports about Patel’s jet-setting lifestyle and love of sporting
events can largely be dismissed as sour grapes from the opposition press.
But the disquiet about the FBI’s lack of transparency and failure to
mount significant investigations is not easily
ignored.
Exhibit A is the uproar over the
Jeffrey Epstein files. In February, following a much-ballyhooed campaign
promising new disclosures, Attorney General Pam Bondi released an
underwhelming batch of documents, most of which turned out to be already in
the public domain or heavily redacted. Bondi pinned
the blame on the FBI and promised more documents to come as soon as the
next day. No documents were forthcoming. Judicial Watch repeatedly asked
the FBI to turn over the Epstein files under the Freedom of Information
Act. The FBI did not respond to the JW requests and in April, Judicial
Watch sued
for the records. “The Justice Department needs to respond to public
demands for transparency under law and release the Epstein files under
FOIA,” said JW’s Fitton.
The Epstein
case is not the only instance of a troubling lack of transparency at the
Justice Department and the FBI. Officials have been stonewalling Judicial
Watch—the national leader in FOIA actions related to government
corruption—in some cases for years.
Seven
years ago, for example, Judicial Watch filed a
FOIA lawsuit for text messages between FBI agents involved in
the bogus “Russia Collusion” investigation of Donald Trump. The FBI has
refused to turn over many of the texts and related documents—or even
disclose what they are withholding.
JW sued
the Justice Department—twice, in 2023 and 2024—for communications
surrounding the controversial Hunter Biden laptop story. And in October
2024, JW sued the Justice Department for communications among top
officials about anti-Trump
social media posts by a senior agent involved in an investigation of a
Florida assassination attempt against
Trump.
The Justice Department and FBI
response to these requests? Stonewalls, silence, and
foot-dragging.
Installation in key positions
of Deep State actors like Jensen and lack of transparency are not the only
strikes against Bondi, Patel, and Bongino. Perhaps most disturbing is their
failure to act decisively to reduce the vast powers of the Justice
Department and the FBI.
“President Trump
was almost
jailed by his own Justice Department in his first term,” Steve Bannon
recently reminded viewers in a War Room interview with Fitton. It’s a
segment worth viewing
in its entirety.
“There’s no
evidence the FBI thinks it is subject to the rule of law,” Fitton said.
“Kash Patel and Pam Bondi need to take a much more aggressive [approach]
and have an expansive understanding as to what their opportunities and
roles are.”
“It’s a systemic
problem,” Bannon said. “It’s not just a personnel problem. [The FBI]
has to be taken apart brick
by brick.”
The outlines of an aggressive
inquiry that would set the stage for reducing the power of the Justice
Department and FBI are obvious: get to the bottom of the targeting of Trump
and his allies in the Russiagate scandal; look at the FBI role in the
Hunter Biden laptop case and the limiting of the story’s media
circulation at a critical moment in the 2020 election; expose the roots of
the 2022 Mar-a-Lago raid; connect the dots of FBI targeting of conservative
Catholics, parents attending school board meetings, and pro-life
groups.
Doubtless Bondi, Patel, and Bongino
have their hands full managing the day-to-day affairs of their giant
bureaucracies. Conservatives still wish them well, but time is running out.
And the president who promised to “demolish
the Deep State” is watching from the White House. They will not be
forgiven for bungling a historic
opportunity.
L.A. Rioters Fight to Keep
Rapists, Murderers, Gangbangers on City Streets
We’ve
reported for years on the dangerous criminals among those who have
illegally crossed our southern border. Now, those on the Left are
pretending they don’t exist. Our Corruption Chronicles
blog sets
the record straight.
Rioters in Los Angeles are fighting
to keep rapists, murderers, gangbangers and other violent criminals loose
on city streets, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirms this
week contradicting open border groups, media outlets and California
Democrats who claim only hard-working, law-abiding immigrants were cruelly
arrested in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICEO) sweeps that
ignited pandemonium in the City of Angels. Federal agents and local police
officers have been violently attacked, cars set
on fire, businesses looted and roads blocked. Elected officials in the
Golden State condemn the ICE operations as an attack on immigrant families
and mainstream media outlets downplay the riots as protests and civil
unrest. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed rioters burning cars
and breaking windows as being caught up in “the
exuberance of the moment.” The mainstream media coverage has also
focused on the family men arrested by ICE and the spouses and children
suffering over their sudden absence. A local newspaper story
features an arrested migrant’s wife who joined a peaceful protest held by
families of other detained men to make a public plea for help and due
process.
DHS is setting the record straight
by releasing detailed criminal information about the illegal
immigrants—all men—recently arrested in the L.A. sweep, which started
about a week ago. California sanctuary politicians and rioters are
defending heinous illegal alien criminals including child pedophiles and
other violent offenders at the expense of Americans’ safety, the agency
created after 9/11 to
safeguard the nation writes in a statement
issued this week. Instead of rioting, Californians should be thanking ICE
officers who make our communities safe, DHS further points out, questioning
why California Governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass care more
about violent criminal illegal aliens than they do about protecting their
own citizens? While federal agents were getting assaulted in Bass’s city,
she sided with lawlessness over law enforcement, according to ICE Director
Todd Lyons, who reveals the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) took
over
two hours to respond when his agents, vastly outnumbered by over 1,000
rioters, were surrounded and attacked. “The brave men and women of ICE
were in Los Angeles arresting criminal illegal aliens including gang
members, drug traffickers and those with a history of assault, cruelty to
children, domestic violence, robbery, and smuggling,” Lyons
said.
DHS assures that ICE will continue to
“arrest vicious illegal alien criminals” even as rioters disrupt law
enforcement. Fortunately, President Donald Trump deployed the
National Guard and Marines to maintain order. Bass, L.A.’s leftist mayor,
finally implemented a curfew after several nights of extensive looting and
vandalism. She insists most of the rioters are peacefully demonstrating and
called the curfew an effort to “curb
bad actors who do not support the immigrant community.” She also
demands that the immigration raids stop along with nearly two dozen other
elected officials in the region. “When you raid Home Depots and
workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you deploy
troops to our streets, you’re not trying to keep anyone safe – you’re
trying to cause fear and panic,” said Bass, who was on a trip to Africa
while her city burned earlier this year. She accused Trump of triggering a
“chaotic
escalation” by sending federalized troops and initially described the
rioting as “reports
of unrest.”
Here are some of the
illegal immigrants arrested in the recent L.A. operation, which the feds
say is ongoing. The DHS announcement includes photos of the perpetrators as
well. They include Cuong Chanh Phan, who committed a notorious
gang-affiliated murder of two teenagers at a graduation party; Eswin
Uriel Castro, previously deported with criminal convictions for child
molestation and being armed with a dangerous weapon. He has also been
arrested for robbery and domestic violence; Anastacio Enrique
Solis-Salinas, a Nicaragua convict, has convictions for domestic violence
and hit and run and has been arrested for willful cruelty to a child;
Rafael Gamez-Sanchez has been convicted of vehicular manslaughter; Miguel
Angel Palafox-Montes, previously returned to Mexico twice, has been
convicted of grand theft, narcotics violations and identity theft and has
been arrested for battery and burglary; Dzhakhar Aslambekov, a Russian
illegal immigrant, was recently arrested for fraud related to government
assistance programs. The list
of criminal offenders goes on and on, the “worst of the worst illegal
alien criminals in Los Angeles,” DHS
assures.
U.S. Subsidizes Illegal
Immigrant Money Transfers Via Federal Reserve
Your Federal
Reserve (a creature of the federal government) is
helping illegal aliens in our country send billions back to their countries
of origin. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.
As
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denounces the proposed remittance tax
and calls for protests in this country, she conveniently fails to mention
that the United States government has for two decades subsidized the money
transfers through a Federal Reserve program called “Directo
a Mexico.” Remittances are the largest single source of foreign
income for Mexico and last year migrants in the U.S. sent a historic $62.5
billion to family back home. Under the One
Big Beautiful Bill Act, recently passed by the House and pending Senate
approval, remittances from noncitizens in the U.S. will be taxed 3.5%,
igniting fury among Mexican
government officials, especially Sheinbaum who threatened to “mobilize”
a fight against the tax. Mexico’s president has publicly called on fellow
Mexicans in the United States to send senators letters, electronic mail and
social media posts expressing their disagreement with the additional
assessment.
The U.S. is the top source of
remittances worldwide and the money sent by migrants to help support family
back home has long provided Latin America—especially Mexico—a critical
economic lifeline. President Trump recently proposed a 5% tax on
remittances and House
Republicans reduced it to 3.5%. Omitted from mainstream media coverage,
mostly critical of the proposed tax, is the “Directo a Mexico” program
run by the Federal Reserve, the government agency that serves as the
nation’s central bank. It was launched 20 years ago and uses government
resources to subsidize and help illegal immigrants transfer cash to Mexico.
Back in 2006 Judicial Watch obtained Federal
Reserve marketing materials created for the program, which was designed
to facilitate the transfer of funds from immigrant workers in the
U.S.—regardless
of legal status—to relatives in Mexico. The marketing materials, from the
Retail Payments Office of the Federal Reserve in Atlanta, Georgia, were
prepared by the government for presentations to financial institutions in
California in November 2006.
The “Directo
a Mexico” marketing materials were targeted to banks, credit unions and
other financial institutions in the U.S. and include information on payment
channels and benefits to Mexican recipients. The marketing materials also
detail the number of Mexican migrants in the United States—at the time
9,328,405—with no distinction between those here illegally. A separate
list identifies Mexican banks receiving “Directo a Mexico” transfers by
branches (8,578) and total bank accounts (41,313,157). After viewing all
the records, Judicial Watch determined that the taxpayer-subsidized program
seems designed to facilitate the transfer of wealth by illegal
immigrants outside the United States, undermining our nation’s
immigration laws and creating a potential national security nightmare. At
the very least Judicial Watch called on the Federal Reserve to limit the
program to legal residents and American citizens, which has not
occurred.
In its first year, 2005,
remittances sent through “Directo a Mexico” topped $20 billion and the
Federal Reserve reported “double-digit percentage growth” in the next
several years. Over a decade later Judicial Watch reported
that most of the $33.48
billion in remittances to Mexico at the time flowed through “Directo a
Mexico” amid a growing immigration crisis in the U.S. Remittances are
transferred through the Federal Reserve’s own automated clearinghouse
linked directly to Mexico’s central bank (Banco de Mexico). When the
program was created Federal Reserve officials acknowledged that most of the
Mexican nationals who send money back home are illegal immigrants, so a
Mexican-issued identification is the only requirement to use the government
banking service. In fact, the government’s colorful brochure promoting
“Directo a Mexico” has a frequently asked question section that says:
“If I return to Mexico or am deported, will I lose the money in my bank
account?” The answer is “No. The money still belongs to you and can
easily be accessed at an ATM in Mexico using your debit card.” Decorated
with American and Mexican flags, the Federal Reserve’s two-page brochure
also offers to help
immigrants who do not have bank accounts open one and assures the best
foreign exchange rate and low transfer fees. It is not clear if the
proposed remittance tax will impact money transfers sent via “Directo a
Mexico.”
Until next week,
