Political Child (A Slight Return)

I have been avoiding politics lately for various reasons, but a story is in the news and has urged me to speak my mind. It is the typical multi-layered story that causes lots of press and outrage on the surface before anyone even bothers to think about it. Bank of America has decided to issue credit cards to illegal immigrants and this decision has caused waves of outrage and disgust from the average person, but should it? Is this really as dumb as it admittedly sounds?

A credit card is a trust based form of currency. It is simply an instant loan from a bank to an individual to assist in purchasing and is also used as a form of identification. To many, illegal immigrants have shown they are not to be trusted because they already broke the law to get here and are breaking more laws staying and working here so it makes no sense to validate them by giving them credit cards. I think it makes perfect sense to give them credit cards personally and I think you will see why.

The biggest problem facing those trying to enforce the immigration laws are that those breaking those laws remain under the radar. They cannot get Ids, they cannot get Social Security cards, and they cannot get credit cards. This forces them to remain underground and untraceable. Once they cross the boarder they vanish from all law enforcement and immigration agencies and they will not resurface again. This leaves stopping them at the boarder as the only option left to INS and they obviously need more because they are not stopping anyone.

Our society is becoming more and more of a cashless society everyday. The amount of things a person cannot do if they have no credit is growing daily. These people have worked very hard to get here and are already criminals in the eyes of the law so it is not that far a stretch for them to break more laws to stay here- stealing identity for example. If they could get credit cards they would become part of the system. They could not vanish because every purchase could be traced. There is no way to trace cash. We would force the illegal immigrants to come above ground.

“But the government cannot get the records of credit card companies to do those checks.”

I believe they could without changing any laws or taking anyone’s liberties away. The Constitution gives only the government the right to coin money. As we continue on our path to becoming a paperless society the credit card is becoming the currency of the nation. As I said before, you must have a credit card in America to do most things. This means that right now our currency is owned and controlled by private companies and not the government.

I believe it is time for Bank of America and Citibank and all other credit companies to lose the privilege of printing money and it should return to the Feds. It is one of the few times I support returning power to the federal government. We already have our elections in the hands of companies instead of the people and look how wonderfully those have been going, but that is for another article another day. Today I am just saying that giving credit to those here illegally will force those who want to remain underground above ground and reduce (not end) the amount of identity theft committed by those who are otherwise law abiding illegal immigrants who want to become part of the country.

Why create another barrier and force them to break more laws?