A federal judge of San Diego prevented the Trump administration on Tuesday from enforcing a rule which, according to the government, would retrose money laundering, but that a owner of San Diego in small businesses would probably force her to close.
The rule, promulgated last week by the US department of the Treasury financial crimes execution network, known as Fincen, demanded money service companies in 30 targeted postal codes in California and Texas to declare all transactions of $ 200 or more instead of the usual or more threshold. Fincen said that the massive drop in the reporting threshold, including in seven postal codes of the County San Diego, aimed “further (fighter) illicit activities and money laundering from Mexico cartels and other criminal actors along the southwest border”.
Esperanza Gomez Escobar, the owner of a monetary service company in one of the targeted postal codes in the Southcrest district of San Diego, argued in a trial lodged last week that the new declaration requirement would impose “crushing costs” on companies like hers, which provide a species of control, a transmission of money, an exchange of foreign currency and other services and other services and other services and other services and other services similar. Gomez and his lawyers also argued in part that the rule, known as the “geographic targeting order”, violated the fourth amendment by “(sweeping) information on countless daily transactions” and that criminals could easily avoid improved surveillance by using monetary service companies in neighboring postal codes outside the targeting order.
“This 98% drop in the reporting threshold will continue customers, paralyze the company with documents, will violate the fourth amendment and violate the separation of powers because Fincen is nowhere authorized by a status to impose transactions for the postponement of destructivates this last week in an ordinary temporary reservoir.
US District Judge Janis Sammartino granted this ban on Tuesday during a hearing before the Federal Court of San Diego. The prohibition order prevents the government from enforcing the rule for at least 28 days in the 11 Californian postal codes targeted in the counties of San Diego and Imperial. The postal codes affected in the County of San Diego covered the city center of San Diego, Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, Mountain View and Southcrest, as well as parts of Clairemont and Mira Mesa. Most of the border region of San Ysidro and Otay Mesa was also covered, just like a northern part of Chula Vista.
Earlier this month, a Federal Judge of Texas made a similar temporary ban order, although it only applies to 10 specific Texas companies which are complainants in this case.
Sammartino ruled that the complainants of San Diego, Gomez and his company, November Servicios Plus, “have demonstrated a substantial probability of success on the substance of their assertions”. The complainants had argued that the geographic targeting order had been illegally issued without undergoing notice and country procedures prescribed by federal law and that the rule is arbitrary and capricious under the federal law.
“It is essentially the legal term for the moment when the government does something that has no meaning,” said Rob Johnson, a principal lawyer for the law firm of the public interest in justice for justice which represents Gomez and his business.
Sammartino also judged that the complainants “suffered and will continue to undergo immediate and irreparable damage in the absence of a (temporary prohibition order), including the threat of closing companies and the loss of customers and goodwill”.
Fincen officials did not respond immediately on Tuesday afternoon to a message asking for comments on the decision. A spokesperson for the American prosecutor’s office in San Diego, who represents Fincen and the other defendants of the government, refused to comment.
In a judicial file last week, a government lawyer argued that the rule was legal, had not violated the fourth amendment and that Fincen had “explicit statutory authority” to adopt the rule without asking for a contribution through a process of opinion and trade. “This case implies a temporary modification and geographically limited to an existing Fincen declaration requirement,” wrote the government’s lawyer. “None of the applicants’ complaints justify the drastic appeal of a (temporary prohibition order).”
But Sammartino ranked on the side of Gomez, who argued that his business had already had a negative impact since the rule was promulgated on April 14.
“The complainants already have hundreds of pages of (currency transaction reports) which require an entry into the Fincen system, they are in Rétillandon, they have nowhere to store everything, and their customers go elsewhere,” said his lawyers in a document deposited on Saturday.
The temporary prohibition order expires in 28 days, but Gomez intends to request a preliminary injunction, which would prevent the government from enforcing the rule as long as the trial remains in instance.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
