Red State Lawmakers Move to Cut Migrants Off From Banks and Money Transfers

A bill approved by the Arizona state Senate and now awaiting action in the House would prohibit banks, credit unions and check-cashing businesses from accepting certain forms of identification tied to people who lack legal immigration status. The proposal would bar financial institutions from taking any “license or identification card issued exclusively to an unauthorized alien or undocumented immigrant,” language that appears aimed at Mexican consular IDs.

The bill also targets IDs that are normally issued to U.S. citizens or lawful residents but “has markings indicating that the license or identification card holder did not present proof of the holder’s lawful presence in the United States.” Sen. Wendy Rogers, a Republican from Flagstaff who wrote the measure, said that could include certain driver’s licenses.

If enacted, the restrictions could affect routine services such as opening a bank account, renting a safe-deposit box, applying for a loan or cashing a paycheck. Rogers’ Senate Bill 1421 would also bar anyone without the listed documentation from using financial institutions, including check-cashing companies, to send money abroad.

Rogers has been blunt about the goal.

“Unauthorized aliens in this country are adversely affecting our economy to where U.S. citizens can’t proceed as they should,” Rogers said during committee debate. “And all that money is leaving our country.”

The measure has drawn unified support from Republican lawmakers and unified opposition from Democrats.

The Arizona Bankers Association also opposes the bill. Jay Kaprosy, lobbying for the bankers’ group, argued that financial institutions already operate under federal rules detailing what identification is required.

Rogers pushed back, asking, “Do banks make money on undocumented aliens sending money home?”

“We make money banking whoever we are allowed to bank under the law,” Kaprosy replied. He said banks don’t want to be forced into the role of immigration enforcers.

🚨 IT’S OFFICIAL: Legislation has advanced in Arizona to BAN illegal aliens from

– Having bank accounts
– Sending remittances out of country
– Closing loopholes that allow them to get loans

This is HUGE! Make it law in all 50 states! 🇺🇸
pic.twitter.com/xLeLn2rWLH

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 25, 2026

Rogers wasn’t satisfied.

“That’s all well and good for you to say you don’t want to wade into an immigration fight,” she said. “This isn’t an immigration fight. This is a transfer of funds out of this country.”

Democrats warned the measure would backfire and border on profiling.

“This is just economically disadvantageous,” Joseph Palomino, director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress, told the House Commerce Committee, arguing the law would be challenged and likely preempted by federal authority.

Rep. Cesar Aguilar, a Phoenix Democrat, said the legislation undermines a border-state economy built on commerce.

“In a state where we are so close to the border, where Mexico and the United States have a trade agreement and bring in so much money from Mexico to the United States and vice versa … introducing bills like this are an insult to our own state and actually weaken our own state,” Aguilar said.

Sen. Catherine Miranda, a Democrat from Laveen, pressed Rogers repeatedly on whether enforcement would amount to “racial profiling.”

“The notion of racial profiling is irrelevant,” Rogers responded.

Miranda shot back: “How would you know that without profiling them, asking their status?”

At another point, Miranda said, “I won’t do that. Instead, I’ll let the record speak for itself,” as she read from a prior Senate censure of Rogers and argued the bill “systematically excludes immigrants from banking.”

Rogers responded by defending free speech.

“No matter how heinous someone’s speech is, he or she has the right to say it,” she told Miranda. “By impugning my character and blurring that as someone who supported free speech and blurring that with this bill that I’m carrying is really a sad overreach of your own.”

SB 1421 is one of several immigration-related proposals Rogers has introduced this session, including bills involving hospital reporting, benefits restrictions, border fencing reimbursements, deportation coordination and expanded enforcement training.

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