The war of words over Bank of America Corp.’s program that could result in credit cards for illegal aliens is heating up.

The congresswoman representing Charlotte, N.C., is joining the fight to shut down her hometown bank’s efforts to give credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers. U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, a seven-term Republican congresswoman and former mayor of Charlotte, is co-sponsoring legislation that would kill the controversial credit card offer and she also is pulling her banking business from BofA, one of her biggest political donors.

“I have been with them for a long time, but this was just the straw that breaks the camel’s back in my mind,” says Myrick, who is in the process of moving her accounts to Wachovia Corp. because the BofA program launched in Los Angeles is likely to be rolled out nationally. “If I believe something, I’m going to stand by my principles. I’m not going to be a hypocrite and have my banking there and feel the way I do.”

The bill Myrick is backing would limit the forms of identification banks can accept from customers. It would directly affect the BofA effort, which has received criticism because it offers credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers, a group that can include illegal immigrants.

BofA Chief Executive Officer Ken Lewis has noted the bank is operating within the law, and he says BofA does not want to discriminate against customers who are eligible for its services. While he has conceded illegal immigrants could qualify for the program, he has said more than 80 percent of the participants in the program have Social Security numbers.

Myrick is co-sponsoring a bill introduced by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, earlier this month, called the Photo Identification Security Act. The bill would place restrictions on the forms of identification banks can accept before opening an account for a customer — only Social Security cards, passports or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services photo ID cards would be allowed.

Democrat Rep. Mel Watt, who serves on the House Financial Services Committee and represents North Carolina’s 12th District, said it’s unreasonable to ask financial institutions to check the immigration status of its customers.

Under the Patriot Act, banks are allowed to open accounts for customers who don’t have Social Security numbers but who provide alternate forms of identification, such as an individual taxpayer identification number or a matricula consular, an ID card provided by the Mexican consulate to its citizens

Although BofA has received some backlash, analysts have called the pilot program innovative and say it could help the bank gain share in the fast-growing Hispanic market in the United States. In an opinion column in The Wall Street Journal, Lewis wrote that the pilot program was not aimed at illegal immigrants and will continue despite the objections of some customers.

Before BofA launched its program, Citigroup  had been offering credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers and Wells Fargo & Co. has said it is exploring the idea. Wachovia has said it has no such plans.

Stay tuned with us because I will keep you posted on the latest news regarding this issue. It seems more an more bankd are adopting this.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 8:45 am and is filed under In the News, Visa, Citibank, Bank of America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.