Donald Trump's precise plan to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it involves confiscating remittance payments that Mexicans living in America send home to their families, he revealed on Tuesday. It's a plan that in practice would expand the black market for money transfers and even increase crime:
Security and money-laundering experts who watch the underground financial economy say that in all likelihood, such a rule would not stop the remittances: It would simply send them into the underground economy. Couriers or others will help facilitate money transfers across the border; Mexican nationals could also transfer money through a digital currency like Bitcoin."I guarantee you, before the wall has five bricks in it," said [Don Semesky, a former financial investigator at the IRS and DEA], "there would be an informal black market."Either way, the result would be devastating for law enforcement: they’d lose a powerful tool to trace dubious money tied to drug-runners, terrorists, or human traffickers. [Politico]
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
How Tesla has put Elon Musk on track to be the world’s first trillionaireIn The Spotlight The package agreed by the Tesla board outlines several key milestones over a 10-year period
-
Cop30: is the UN climate summit over before it begins?Today’s Big Question Trump administration will not send any high-level representatives, while most nations failed to submit updated plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions
-
‘The Big Crunch’: why science is divided over the future of the universeThe Explainer New study upends the prevailing theory about dark matter and says it is weakening
-
Has Zohran Mamdani shown the Democrats how to win again?Today’s Big Question New York City mayoral election touted as victory for left-wing populists but moderate centrist wins elsewhere present more complex path for Democratic Party
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
