homeland security & scores

[bourgogne]

https://slate.com/technology/2018/11/dhs-credit-scores-legal-resident-assessment.html

[Anonymous]

That first sentance is all too funny! 

What kind of person racks up debts and doesn’t pay them? Oh IDK... the Fedral Govt.?

How is that a good role Model, when they see their own Government not paying the BILL?

[marty56]

So it seems that the government is buying into the idea that income should be an indicator of credit worthiness and thus citizenship.  As only a second generation American, my grandparents probably would not have been let into the country if they had credit scores back then.  Something about fleeing persecution and poverty to try to have a better life for thermselves and their famliy wouldn't have allowed them to focus too much on playing the Fico score game.

[Anonymous]

It looks like the deadline for the public submitting feedback on the proposal was yesterday.  I am curious to see whether DHS goes ahead.

The biggest practical difficulty (putting aside moral objections) to implementing this is that immigrants typically do not have a credit score, even those who have credit cards in their own country.  That's because the big three bureaus ignore non-US tradelines.  One can imagine an approach where DHS designed a different credit scoring assessment for each country (from which the immigrant hailed) but then you are losing the whole "sell" of objectivity: a standardized approach, the same scoring model drawn on the same bureaus, to help DHS assess whether the person should be admitted.

[Anonymous]

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door"...just let us check your credit report first!