California judge blocks Trump administration anti-money laundering affecting border businesses
A San Diego federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a rule that the government said would crack down on money laundering but that a San Diego small business owner argued would likely force her to close down.
The rule, enacted last week by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, required money services businesses in 30 targeted ZIP codes in California and Texas to report all transactions of $200 or more instead of the usual threshold of $10,000 or more. FinCEN said the massive drop in the reporting threshold, including in seven San Diego County ZIP codes, was aimed at “further (combating) the illicit activities and money laundering of Mexico-based cartels and other criminal actors along the southwest border.”
Esperanza Gomez Escobar, the owner of a money services business in one of the targeted ZIP codes in San Diego’s Southcrest neighborhood, argued in a lawsuit filed last week that the new reporting requirement would impose “crushing costs” on businesses like hers, which provide check cashing, money transmitting, foreign currency exchange and other similar services. Gomez and her attorneys also argued in part that the rule, known as a “geographic targeting order,” violated the Fourth Amendment by “(sweeping) up information about countless everyday transactions” and that criminals could easily avoid the enhanced surveillance by using money services businesses in neighboring ZIP codes outside the targeting order.
“This 98 percent drop in the reporting threshold will chase customers away, cripple the business with paperwork, violate the Fourth Amendment, and violate the separation of powers because FinCEN is nowhere authorized by statute to impose onerous, destructive reporting requirements of this magnitude on ordinary, legal, everyday transactions,” Gomez’s attorneys argued last week in a motion seeking a temporary restraining order.
U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino granted that restraining order Tuesday during a hearing in San Diego federal court. The restraining order blocks the government from enforcing the rule for at least 28 days in the 11 targeted California ZIP codes in San Diego and Imperial counties. The impacted ZIP codes in San Diego County covered downtown San Diego, Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, Mountain View and Southcrest, as well as portions of Clairemont and Mira Mesa. Most of the border region of San Ysidro and Otay Mesa was also covered, as was a northern portion of Chula Vista.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Texas issued a similar temporary restraining order, though it only applied to the 10 specific Texas businesses that are plaintiffs in that case.
Sammartino ruled that the San Diego plaintiffs, Gomez and her business, Novedades y Servicios Plus, “have demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claims.” The plaintiffs had argued that the geographic targeting order was unlawfully issued without undergoing the notice-and-comment procedures prescribed by federal law and that the rule is arbitrary and capricious under federal law.
“That’s basically the legal term for when the government does something that doesn’t make any sense,” said Rob Johnson, a senior attorney with the public interest law firm Institute for Justice that is representing Gomez and her business.
Sammartino also ruled that the plaintiffs “have suffered and will continue to suffer immediate and irreparable harm absent a (temporary restraining order), including the threat of business closure and the loss of customers and goodwill.”
Officials from FinCEN did not immediately respond Tuesday afternoon to a message seeking comment on the ruling. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego, which is representing FinCEN and the other government defendants, declined to comment.
In a court filing last week, a government attorney argued the rule was lawful, did not violate the Fourth Amendment and that FinCEN had “explicit statutory authority” to enact the rule without seeking input through a notice-and-comment process. “This case involves a temporary, geographically limited modification to an existing FinCEN reporting requirement,” the government attorney wrote. “None of Plaintiffs’ claims warrant the drastic remedy of a (temporary restraining order).”
But Sammartino sided with Gomez, who argued her business was already being negatively impacted since the rule was enacted on April 14.
“Plaintiffs already have hundreds of pages of (currency transaction reports) that need entry into FinCEN’s system, they are backlogged, they have nowhere to store everything, and their customers are going elsewhere,” her attorneys argued in a document filed Saturday.
The temporary restraining order expires in 28 days, but Gomez intends to seek a preliminary injunction, which would halt the government from enforcing the rule as long as the lawsuit remains pending.