New Orleans     For several years ACORN members have kicked at the doors of government officials and financial institutions around the world in our Remittance Justice Campaign seeking to stop the predatory cost structure of money transfers from immigrant families and migrant workers back to their families in their home countries. For all of the talk from the World Bank and the G-8 and its moralizing about reducing the cost of remittance transfers to 5%, it has missed its target dates and done actually nothing to achieve the goals, leaving the poorest workers in the world paying billions to transfer one or two hundred dollars to help their families, while corporations and the rich transfer millions through the same computer networks for fractions of a penny. Remittances exist in a regulatory wasteland of uncoordinated country rules and central banks allowing money transfer organizations and banks to charge pretty much whatever they can get away with to individual customers.

Now, suddenly remittances have their almost front page moment thanks to an unlikely advocate, the irrepressible and uninformed Donald Trump who has now stumbled onto remittances the way someone might run into another drunk while trying to make your way out of a bar while a fight is going on. Turns out his plan for paying for the preposterous border wall between the United States and Mexico that would supposedly stop illegal immigration is to somehow try to shakedown the Mexican government for “a one-time payment of $5-10 billion” to pay for the privilege. Mexico’s central bank estimates that $25 billion in remittances comes into their economy annually, so Trump’s bluff is that he would somehow use executive orders to threaten new amendments to the Patriot Act that would somehow stop the flow of remittances and Mexico would rush the money to pay for the wall to keep the cash flowing.

President Obama derided the notion by taunting Trump and saying essentially, “good luck” tracking every Western Union transaction. Sadly, his statement, though scoring points politically and rhetorically, also reveals the level of impotence and indifference the US government has shown in moving Western Union, MoneyGram or any of the other players, large or small, to deal seriously with the issue of any kind of regulations or control of the money transfer business. Basically, Trump’s plan targets the poor of Mexico overtly, rather than the current public policy on remittances which targets the poor indirectly by ignoring the issue. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has made noise about stepping into the issue of pricing and transfers since the Federal Reserve has abdicated any interest protecting the users from predatory practices so that their real concerns, the financial institutions, can keep milking this cash cow, but there has been no follow-up yet.

Competition and international ownership of the largest Mexican banks has forced the fees down in the Mexican market, even as they have remained exorbitant in many other remittance channels globally. Most reporters on this issue who are as oblivious about remittances as Trump and his campaign, and simply say there would be legal and political challenges. In reality after some momentary inconvenience and disruption the transfers would simply go black market and informal, like hawala systems. There would be thousands legally “muling” money across the border legally within days. The Mexican government would protest formally, but informally would simply yawn, while financial institutions on both sides of the border, desperate to keep the rip-offs running, would be screaming like stuck pigs at not being able to milk this cash cow.

Regardless, now that Trump has raised the issue, is there any chance we might finally get politicians, the press, policy makers, and the general public to really understand remittances and put a stop to the predatory feasting of financial institutions on immigrant families and migrant workers?