U.S. Treasury's New Financial Surveillance Program Targets America's Border Communities

Is it a pilot program?

Photo by Alistair MacRobert on Unsplash

On a warm March afternoon, a woman stands outside a small storefront in San Ysidro, California, contemplating whether to enter. The purple and yellow Western Union sign in the window once represented her lifeline to family in Oaxaca—the means by which she sent part of her landscaping earnings to her mother and two children. Now it represents something else: risk.

She ultimately walks away, deciding not to send money today.

[Author's note: The opening scene describes a hypothetical situation. As the FinCEN order was just published on March 14, 2025, and will come into effect on April 13, 2025 (30 days after publication in the Federal Register), I have not yet documented specific cases but anticipate similar scenarios based on expert assessments of the policy's likely impacts.]

This scenario may soon become reality for many of the more than million residents in thirty ZIP codes along the Southwest border who now find themselves caught in an unpreceden…