The Trump administration puts banks on the front line of surveillance against the employment of undocumented immigrants

The Donald Trump administration escalates its offensive against undocumented immigrants. The U.S. Treasury Department issued an alert this Friday asking banks to raise their sights to detect and report undocumented immigrant workers. “This Administration will not allow undocumented immigrants to abuse financial institutions to steal billions of dollars from hard-working American taxpayers,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared in writing.

Read more Activists from the Gaza aid convoy detained in Libya, on hunger strike

According to U.S. authorities, last year banks in the U.S. reported more than $2.5 billion in suspicious activities associated with these payroll tax fraud schemes. In the United States, undocumented immigrants represent between 4% and 6% of all workers, according to calculations by the Center for Migration Studies in New York.

The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) urges institutions to remain vigilant against fraud schemes and other activities related to the employment of undocumented immigrants. Authorities assert that illegal workers can gain an unfair advantage over legitimate U.S. businesses and steal millions of dollars in federal and state tax revenue: “Undocumented immigrants can illicitly obtain Social Security numbers and other personal information from U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents to secure illegal employment and wages, employer- and government-provided healthcare benefits in the United States, and access to financial services.”

The Treasury Department goes further, warning that, in certain cases, illegally obtained wages are used to facilitate the financing of drug cartels. This framework also refers to the involvement of an accomplice labor intermediary to provide undeclared payroll or payment processing services. “Accomplice employers can also use tax fraud schemes to conceal the hiring of low-wage undocumented immigrant workers, as well as to evade taxes and workers’ compensation benefits,” FinCEN adds.

The Treasury provides a series of guidelines to banks for detecting suspicious operations, for example, if a self-employed worker or a small business in agriculture, construction, domestic service, hospitality, or staffing receives a significant amount and volume of recurring check deposits from various companies. “Financial institutions should consider the surrounding facts and circumstances, such as the customer’s financial history, whether transactions align with usual business practices, and whether the customer exhibits multiple red flags, before determining if a behavior or transaction is suspicious or indicates risks to the integrity of the U.S. financial system,” it states.

The recent alert issued by the Trump Administration for banks to strengthen their surveillance systems against shell company schemes, tax fraud, and undocumented workers adds to previous alerts about remittances. In late 2025, the Treasury Department asked money transfer companies like Western Union, MoneyGram, or Remitly to pay closer attention to international transfers, primarily made by immigrants. At that time, FinCEN warned that malicious actors have resorted to these types of low-value operations to finance drug trafficking. Mexico is one of the main recipient countries of remittances in the world, with an accumulation of more than $61 billion received annually through this channel.

Read more ONCE Cuponazo: check Friday, June 5 draw