CU-Piloted Remittance Program Under Fire

WASHINGTON – A new remittance program being piloted by credit unions to help immigrants transfer funds to Mexico was assailed yesterday as a subsidy to illegal immigration. “Directo a Mexico is being marketed to illegal immigrants who earned this money illegally and now want to be sending it back to Mexico. The Federal Reserve should not be facilitating this,” said Tom Fitton, president of U.S. Judicial Watch, a self-styled government watchdog made famous for its legal battle against President Clinton. The group has contacted the Fed and members of Congress and is pushing its case that the multi-billion remittance program should be halted. As many as 50 credit unions have signed on to the fledgling Directo a Mexico program, which uses the Federal Reserve and the Mexican Central Bank to bypass expensive commercial remittance services and provide direct credit union or bank to bank transfers as a fraction of the cost. John Herrera, chairman of Latino Community CU, contended that the low-cost remittance system was carefully designed as a way to help fight terrorism, drug trafficking and other kinds of international crime. “Experts on national security, including FinCen, the Secret Service, OFAC, all these experts testified during the creation of the U.S. Patriot Act that it was in the best interests of the United States to gather information on the movement of money into and out of the country,” he told The Credit Union Journal.