Trump’s Executive Order Targets Customer Identification, Cross-Border

On May 19, 2026, the White House released an Executive Order titled “Restoring Integrity to America’s Financial System” and an accompanying fact sheet. The Order directs the Department of the Treasury, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and federal financial regulators to take action on customer identification, customer due diligence, Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) implementation, credit underwriting, and financial services involving  “non-work authorized illegal alien” populations and their employers. 

The Order directly links anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) risks to immigration status and concretely revives the unsubstantiated rhetoric promulgated in the 2008 financial crisis, which blamed “illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks, and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis.” Accordingly, the Order outlines a series of actions to mitigate “risks” posed by “the extension of credit or financial services to the inadmissible and removable alien population.”

While the Order does not directly regulate nonprofits, its language and implementation could affect how banks, money services businesses (MSBs), payment platforms, donors, and other financial intermediaries assess nonprofits that serve immigrant, refugee, undocumented, mixed-status, humanitarian, and cross-border communities.

Explaining the Executive Order

In pursuit of “national security and public safety,” the Order attempts to reduce risks to the financial system it alleges arise from “illicit cross-border financial activity” and “the extension of credit or financial services to the inadmissible and removable alien population.” 

To justify the directives, the Order cites purported links between “low-dollar cross-border funds transfers” and illicit financial activity, stating that these transfers have been used to “facilitate or commit terrorist financing, narcotics trafficking, human trafficking, and other illegal activity.” To support this framing, the Order cites fentanyl-related financial activity tied to Mexico-based cartels and an analysis of Chinese money laundering networks that allegedly found that foreign passport holders used U.S.-based accounts to launder “over $312 billion” for criminal organizations.

To restrict “illicit cross-border financial activity” and “the extension of credit or financial services to the inadmissible and removable alien population,” the Order directs relevant agencies to push forward two actions that could have tremendous impact on nonprofits.

First, it directs the Treasury to issue a formal advisory to financial institutions to identify red flags associated with “non-work authorized populations and their employers.” The Order’s targeted structures include shell companies, funnel structures, unregistered money services businesses, peer-to-peer platforms, “off-the-books” wage payments, and the use of Individual Taxpayer…