Scott Bessent said the executive order to make banks collect citizenship information is in the works.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the proposed executive order that would make it mandatory for banks to collect citizenship information is in the process. “It’s in process. And I don’t think it’s unreasonable, because: Why don’t we have information on who’s in our banking system? I have a place in the UK; they want to know who lives in every apartment. And how do we know that it’s not part of a foreign terrorist organization?” Bessent told Semaphor. This would be a step in the administration’s ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration. Under the proposal, REAL IDs would not be considered eligible documents for banking purposes. When the proposal was first reported, Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, said he strongly supported the idea, and wrote to the Treasury Department, urging it to “undertake a comprehensive review of current rules that allow illegal aliens to obtain financial services and access to the US banking system.”“Access to the American banking system is a privilege that should be reserved for those who respect our laws and sovereignty,” he said. “When individuals are allowed to open accounts without verifying legal status, we are permitting illegal aliens to establish financial roots and integrate economically, all while bypassing the legal channels that millions use properly.”Any possibility of making a US passport mandatory for getting a bank account in the US triggers panic as the order could affect millions of Americans. There were only 183 million US passports in circulation in 2025, in a country with a population of more than 340 million. American Banker reported that only half of the US population has passports, depending on the state. For example, eight of 10 New Yorkers have a passport but only two out of 10 West Virginians have it. A record revealed that 10 states with the lowest passport rates (of 37 percent or below) voted for Trump in the last three elections.The Washington Post said Wall Street executives had warned administration officials that the plan would be an unworkable administrative burden. Jeremy Kress, associate professor of business law at the University of Michigan warned that the plan was “a way to weaponize the banking system to achieve political ends.”