The recession and subsequent nosedive of the stock market during the late 2000s probably had you wishing that you had stashed all your money under the mattress instead of in mutual funds and stocks. But carrying your cash around or hiding it in your home isn’t safe, as immigrants who often lack access to traditional banking services know all to well.
Adrian Mendez of the Trenton, New Jersey Police Department told Carlos Avila of The Trentonian that keeping money at home or in a pocket turns immigrants into “walking ATMs,” frequent victims of robbery and violence. On March 30, Sergeant Mendez presented the Trenton police department’s plan to help keep non-U.S. citizens safe from robbery at a community meeting. One of the department’s key plans? Asking local banks (serving areas where many immigrants live) to open savings accounts for people — even if they can’t document their immigration status.
So far, TD Bank and Santander Bank have agreed: Anyone with either a Social Security Number or an Individual Tax Identification Number (which is issued by the IRS) to open an account. Immigrants who work but do not have legal status in the United States often receive an ITIN.
Alba Lopez, who leads a women’s group at the church where Mendez spoke said, “I think this is a very helpful gesture by the TPD [Trenton Police Department], because many of our congregants fear the police and don’t report crimes. This goes a long way to helping build good relationships between our community and the police.”
Mendez added that the police department is “interested in educating the Hispanic community about their rights and responsibilities.”
While Congress continues to debate federal immigration reform, this local connection between immigrants and financial institutions is just the kind of grassroots immigration advocacy that we like to see.
MORE: Here’s How An Ancient Banking Technique Can Help America’s Poor
Tag: Trenton
This Hero Cop’s New Beat Is Diapers
Officer Tyrone Hodges spent his law enforcement career protecting the low-income people of Trenton, N.J. until a line-of-duty injury forced him to retire in 2004. He wanted to continue doing meaningful work, and he was completing his master’s degree in organizational leadership at Rider University, when he read that many families in the area can’t afford diapers for their babies. For his final school project, he personally collected a thousand diapers and gave them to the Millhill Child and Family Development Center, so many that the center told him they might not be able to store them all. Then Hodges shifted to collecting donations for the center, garnering enough to purchase 20,000 more diapers. That’s enough to keep the 2,500 low-income families the center supports well stocked for a good while. To top it off, Hodges wrote a 30-page paper about the project. Sounds like an A+.