Today's bogus whack at Fred: lending and language
This Yahoo video quotes Fred Thompson claiming that illegal immigrants' lack of English skills made them more vulnerable to manipulation by mortgage lenders or something. (They don't play the actual audio).
Actually the Wall Street Journal said pretty much the same thing, in an article I linked to a while back:
Housing counselors say they have seen this type of activity across the U.S. Among the vulnerable groups: Latinos throughout California, Caribbean and African borrowers in the New York area, and Russian immigrants in Philadelphia.That won't stop the Race Police from whining about it, though."Immigrants with limited English just trusted what people from their country told them," says Katrina Vizinau, a counselor at Community Housing Development Corp. of North Richmond, a nonprofit organization that educates homeowners in the East Bay area.
A lawsuit filed by Ms. Costa and several others in California superior court alleges that a network of real-estate agents, loan officers and mortgage brokers targeted "vulnerable immigrants," falsified financial records, forged documents and misled the home buyers about the real costs of their mortgages. The suit seeks unspecified damages for the plaintiffs.
The 15 defendants deny any wrongdoing. A formal response to the complaint, made by Mr. Santos and four other defendants, claims, among other things, that the plaintiffs committed fraud and made misrepresentations in their mortgage applications.