Finally, action against 'remittances' is taking shape. Hundreds of billions of dollars have left the country via 'remittances' - an economic drain of massive proportions!

 

Illegal alien remittances: Bessent says ‘follow the money’

By Wendi Strauch Mahoney www.americanthinker.com

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday that he plans to crack down on the exploitation of the U.S. financial system by illegal aliens who send “illicitly obtained funds” across the border. Under his direction on November 26, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a two-page alert, FIN-2025-Alert003, instructing money services businesses (MSBs) to “be vigilant” in detecting and reporting suspicious cross-border funds transfers involving “illegal aliens.”

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reports that “the U.S. loses at least $200 billion per year from our economy in remittances,” according to data published in 2021. Mexico ($52.6 billion) leads in the top five recipient countries, ahead of India ($15.8 billion), Guatemala ($14.7 billion), the Philippines ($12.8 billion), and China ($12.7 billion). In 2025, remittances to Mexico have dropped, according to several sources, due to Trump’s border policies. Although most remittances sent from the U.S. are reportedly lawful, FinCEN previously warned that bad actors also exploited small cross-border transfers to carry out or support terrorist financing, drug-trafficking, and other illegal activities.

Illegal aliens as defined by the alert do not include U.S. citizens or nationals, lawful permanent residents, foreign nationals with valid visas who haven’t overstayed, or aliens whose employment in the United States is specifically authorized by law or regulation. Rather, the measure is aimed at people who have no lawful status or work authorization at all.

The alert is consistent with Trump’s Executive Order 14159, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which highlights abuses that have “cost taxpayers billions of dollars at the Federal, State, and local levels.” It also references a second Trump-era E.O., Executive Order 14157, designating cartels and other organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).

In 2020, FinCEN proposed a modification of the threshold in the rule implementing the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The Bank Secrecy Act requires financial institutions to gather and keep certain information on specific funds transfers. Under the proposed change, the reporting threshold would be lowered from $3,000 to $250 for any transfer that starts or ends outside the United States. FinCEN also proposed dropping from $3,000 to $250 the threshold at which institutions must pass along customer and transaction details to other financial institutions in the payment chain for cross-border transfers. FinCEN has yet to officially issue a final rule putting the $250 threshold into effect.

FinCEN’s alert is aimed squarely at MSBs — the mom-and-pop remittance counters at grocery stores, strip-mall transmitters, and larger money transfer companies that move small-dollar payments from the United States to family abroad. These entities are already regulated under the Bank Secrecy Act, but FinCEN is now telling them to treat certain transfers by illegal aliens as especially high-risk.

This represents the third major FinCEN action in 2025 aimed at cross-border financial flows. Earlier this year, FinCEN issued Geographic Targeting Orders (GTOs) requiring certain MSBs along the southwest border — in specified counties and ZIP codes in Arizona, California, and Texas — to file Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) at lower-than-normal dollar thresholds. The point was to bring more small cash movements into view where cartels and smugglers operate.

FinCEN also wants a tracking tag. This allows Treasury to quickly pull and analyze cases involving illegal-alien remittances as a distinct category of suspected crime.  For example, when MSBs file suspicious activity reports (SARs) to report “a possible violation of law or regulation connected to cross-border transfers of funds by illegal aliens,” they’re asked to include the “key term ‘FIN-2025-Alert003’ in SAR field 2 (‘Filing Institution Note to FinCEN’) and the narrative.”

FinCEN issued three alerts earlier this year in March, May, and August:

1. FIN-2025-Alert001 referenced bulk cash-smuggling and repatriation by Mexico-based transnational criminal organizations (TCOs).
2. FIN-2025-Alert002 referred to oil-smuggling schemes along the U.S. southwest border that have become a major non-drug revenue stream for cartels.
3. And an August advisory, FIN-2025-A003, detailed how Chinese money-laundering networks help Mexico-based TCOs wash their profits.

FinCEN does not have the authority to check immigration status at the counter, nor does the document stipulate a requirement to ask for proof of lawful presence.  Instead, it tells MSBs to use information they already have or could reasonably obtain while doing business to determine whether a cross-border transfer looks suspicious.

In practice, that determination may be based on behavioral patterns including

• a customer known or believed to be in the country without legal status sending frequent transfers that appear inconsistent with his stated job or income.
• multiple senders using the same ID, address, or phone number to move funds to common beneficiaries abroad.
• Transfers structured to avoid reporting thresholds or spread among several MSBs in the same neighborhood.
• Links to areas or individuals already associated with cartel activity, smuggling, or human-trafficking operations.

If the MSB “knows, suspects, or has reason to suspect” that the funds came from illegal employment or other illicit U.S. activity by an illegal alien, it must file a SAR.  This has technically been true for years but is now being elevated as an enforcement priority. Bessent is signaling that the financial system is now a key battlefield, whereas immigration authorities in the past have focused mainly on physical borders and workplace raids.

It remains to be seen whether the priority to target financial networks will disrupt cartel financing or illegal-alien cash flows. It depends on how aggressively regulators enforce it and how seriously MSBs implement the new guidance.