Donald Trump signed an executive order on May 19 titled “Restoring Integrity to America’s Financial System,” directing the US Treasury Department, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and federal banking regulators to issue new guidance within 60 to 180 days. The order calls for closer review of non-citizen banking activity and identifies several red flags, including opening accounts with an ITIN instead of a Social Security number, using shell companies to conceal the true account holder, and splitting transactions to avoid Bank Secrecy Act reporting thresholds.
Three categories of suspicious activity named in the order
The order tells financial institutions to identify and report three types of conduct: evasion of payroll taxes, concealment of the true owner of an account, and off-the-books wage payments. A White House fact sheet adds more specific indicators. Those include ITIN-based account openings, shell-company structures used to obscure beneficial ownership, and transaction structuring designed to stay below BSA reporting limits.
Banks are also instructed to strengthen customer due diligence, or KYC checks, for people described as lacking work authorization and for their employers. In lending, the order says institutions should factor in the possibility of deportation and the related loss of income when assessing a borrower’s ability to repay.
No direct mandate to collect citizenship documents, but compliance pressure remains
The text does not explicitly require banks to collect proof of citizenship or lawful residency from customers. That is less aggressive than an earlier version reportedly considered by the White House. Still, lawyers cited in the source said the practical effect could be similar, because banks trying to limit regulatory exposure may add citizenship-related questions to KYC forms on their own.
The order uses the phrase “voluntary cooperation,” yet also warns that institutions ignoring “significant immigration risk” could face enforcement action. That leaves banks with a clear incentive to expand internal screening, even without a formal documentation mandate.
Potential spillover into crypto account reviews
The source says undocumented immigrants pushed out of the formal banking system could turn to unregulated cash channels, raising exposure to predatory lending and wage theft. It also links the policy to crypto by noting that people excluded from traditional banking may seek other financial rails, including digital assets. At the same time, tougher enforcement around the Bank Secrecy Act could lead crypto exchanges to apply tighter review standards to non-citizen accounts.
Polymarket pricing points to a lower deportation range
The article also cites a Polymarket market on how many people Trump might deport in 2026. The 400,000 to 500,000 range carried the highest implied probability at 42%. The 300,000 to 400,000 bracket followed at 31.5%, while 200,000 to 300,000 stood at 10.5%. A result above 1 million had an implied probability of just 0.8%.
In the source material, the bank scrutiny order and deportation expectations are presented as parts of the same policy chain: tighter checks on accounts and money flows on one side, and immigration enforcement on the other. What is clear for now is the timeline. Regulators have several months to turn the order into detailed rules, and banks’ KYC standards will be central to how the policy is applied.