Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump (or, more likely, Stephen Miller) has now thought of a new way to make life tough for immigrants and nonimmigrants alike. He (Trump, not Miller) is going to sign an XO ordering banks to collect citizenship information from all their customers. This is likely to be followed by another XO ordering banks to close the accounts of anyone who is not a citizen and to not open any new accounts for noncitizens.
There are so many problems here. First, an XO is an order to the federal bureaucracy to interpret some law in a particular way. It is not an order to any private bank. Congress and the Fed can create new regulations for banks, but not the president. Second, there is no law saying that noncitizens cannot open bank accounts. Green card holders can certainly open bank accounts and so can foreign tourists, although most banks require the tourist to show up in person with a valid passport. Third, this could have a chilling effect on actual citizens who don't want to share sensitive documents with any bank. Fourth, banks will undoubtedly be required to store the proof of citizenship documentation, with the risk that the banks will be hacked and criminals will get copies of passports and other documentation. Fifth, if banks are later required to close accounts of noncitizens, there are surely going to be some mistakes and the people whose accounts are erroneously closed are likely to sue, forcing the banks to hire more lawyers to defend themselves. Sixth, as with voting, an estimated 20 million people who are citizens do not have any documentary proof that they are citizens. What will happen to them? From the banks' point of view, none of this has any value whatsoever for them, so they will strongly oppose it.
In short, another half-baked idea from the Trump White House. We'll see if they try to move forward with it, or they toss it on the (large) pile of other half-baked ideas that went nowhere. (V)