What Happened
AP reported that Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a Friday advisory telling banks to watch for identity theft, payroll tax fraud and money laundering schemes tied to hiring unauthorized workers.
Treasury said the advisory was issued jointly with the FDIC, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and National Credit Union Administration, and in coordination with the IRS. The department said suspicious activity reports in 2025 linked more than $2.5 billion to payroll tax fraud schemes.
The advisory lists 18 red flags and asks financial institutions to use the key term "FINANCIALINTEGRITY-2026-A002" in suspicious activity reports tied to the conduct. AP noted the move follows Trump's May executive order directing bank regulators and departments to look for signs that people without legal status are opening accounts or getting loans or credit cards.
Why This Matters
Payroll fraud and identity theft are real crimes. Employers who exploit workers, evade taxes and hide behind shell companies deserve scrutiny. That part is not the joke.
The concern is what happens when immigration enforcement gets stapled to ordinary banking risk. AP reported the order does not encourage blanket debanking, but the practical effect can still be chilling: people become wary of banks, banks become wary of people, and the compliance desk starts reading like a border checkpoint with a spreadsheet.
The Dumb Part With The Risk Form
The dumb part is turning financial access into another proxy fight. Instead of simply going after exploitative employers and shell-company payroll schemes, the policy atmosphere invites banks to squint at customers through an immigration lens and hope they guessed the politics correctly.
Also, "FINANCIALINTEGRITY-2026-A002" is a very federal way to name a red flag. It sounds like a printer error that got promoted to deputy assistant secretary.
The Bottom Line
FinCEN says financial institutions are critical to detecting illicit activity. AP says the broader order discourages people in the U.S. illegally from interacting with the financial system without urging blanket debanking. The real stupid shit is that the bank lobby may now need to decide whether a checking account is a customer relationship or an immigration-adjacent incident report.
Sources
AP: Treasury warns banks of red flags for customers in the US illegally