California Conservative

According to this Reuters article, Bank of America is defending its decision to issue credit cards to illegal aliens. I must say that their responses haven’t been very persuasive. Here’s an example to illustrate my point:

For its part, Bank of America has not seen “any unusual business activity” resulting from responses to the pilot program, spokeswoman Alexandra Trower said. “Some (customers) are very supportive, while others are not supportive,” she said. “That is why we undertake pilots.”

Here’s what makes her statement unpersuasive:

William Gheen, director of the National Illegal Immigration Boycott Coalition, said his group has collected hundreds of e-mails from people vowing to cancel accounts and move mortgages. The group said it has more than 11,000 signatures on its petition calling for a boycott of Bank of America.

Bank of America is kidding themselves if they think this won’t dramatically impact their profits. You can’t fight impassioned customers, which their CEO admits he’s feeling:

In his Thursday opinion piece, Lewis admitted it is not pleasant to be caught a century later in the “heated” national immigration debate, and that he was “feeling the passion.”

That’s spin for “I’m taking a hit for this.” It’s safe to say that he’s wishing that they hadn’t tried this program. What’s baffling to me is why he thought that this wouldn’t be controversial. Why didn’t Mr. Lewis think that anti-illegal immigration activists would take this personally?

Even if it isn’t illegal, the move is foolish from a bottom line perspective. They’ve stirred up alot of anger amongst its customers, which is the opposite of what a business should do if it hopes to maximize its profits.

Meanwhile, CNN host Lou Dobbs, another illegal immigration opponent, has called the card program “outrageous,” and the idea that Bank of America isn’t marketing to illegal immigrants “fundamentally, absolutely and unequivocally a lie.”

I don’t often agree with Lou Dobbs but I wholeheartedly agree this time. Don’t expect this program to last long.

Technorati Tags: Bank Of America, Illegal Immigration, Lou Dobbs, CNN

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 at 2:29 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Homeland Security, Immigration, Mexico. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.