Muslim Americans, immigrants face ‘inequitable’ banking access

Muslim Americans, immigrants face ‘inequitable’ banking access
Bank account - CC via SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

Financial and banking violations have been committed against Muslim Americans and immigrants in the United States, pushing a number of lawmakers to send an open letter to the biggest financial institutions, seeking a reassessment of their policies in order to achieve “equitable banking access.”

 

“Countless US individuals, businesses and charities have been victims of discriminatory policies and practices that appear to limit their access to financial services because of their religion or national origin,” the letter read.

 

According to the letter, Muslim Americans and immigrants have found difficulties sending their remittances to their relatives in countries of origin with “weak financial governance and that are subject to US sanctions.” Also, some Muslim Americans from the Middle East and Arab countries and South Asia have been cut off from their financial services.

 

The letter, which has been signed by dozens of lawmakers, has been sent to the US Department of the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Acting Comptroller of the Currency. These bodies were given a period of 30 days to respond since sending the letter to them.

 

The congressional campaign was led by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). “The federal government must step in to halt and reverse existing discriminatory actions,” said Omar on her Twitter account on December 2.

 

Over the past years, there have been several complaints by Muslim Americans about “discrimination” when it comes to access to banking services. The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) previously said that some US banks and financial institutions sent letters to customers to collect information to notify the customers of having their accounts closed, saying that some rare cases of closing the financial and bank accounts have been recorded for Muslim and Arab Americans whose national countries are sanctioned by the US, like Syria and Iran.

 

As a consequence of the September 11 attacks in 2001 against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, discriminatory acts against Muslims have increased, according to a report issued by the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in 2021. It added that the number of complaints from Muslim Americans in 2019 and 2020 increased by 9 percent. Following the September 11 attacks, the US passed the Patriot Act, seeking “to prevent, detect and prosecute international money laundering and financing of terrorism.”

 

The New York CAIR office filed a lawsuit against Citibank over accusations of “discrimination” when the bank refused in July 2019 to open a savings account for a Muslim woman and wanted to make her husband the beneficiary.

 

In September 2017, a 49-year-old Muslim American, whose origin country is Iraq, and his daughter were arrested when they tried to deposit a check at an Emprise Bank in Wichita, Kansas, Muslim Advocates reported.

 

In 2013, the Huntington National Bank was charged with the sudden closure of bank accounts of some Arab Americans without giving any prior explanation, US Today reported. The bank was accused of engaging in “racial, ethnic, national origin or religious discrimination against its customers.”

 

 


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