It is rarely discussed at all in public forums. Only specialists write about it. But it is a threat to everyone in the most intensely effective way. The practice denies people access to the basics of life and yet there is no appeal, no process, no methods of challenge, and no remediation.

We did not know until Melania Trump's latest biography that she and her son Barron were victims of debanking, the practice of shutting down a person's bank account based on an unsigned and unexplained decision in which the account holder is merely notified that all services are hereby denied.

Good on her for admitting this. People rarely do.

This apparently happened in 2021, after her husband had left the office of the presidency. There were concerted efforts at the time to wipe out the memory of his time in office.

Back in those days, I used the home assistant app called Google Home. I asked who the 45th president was and the product responded that it had no information on that. Indeed, it was like a scene from Orwell.

Apparently Melania and Barron were also being deleted by their own bank.

"I was shocked and dismayed to learn that my long-time bank decided to terminate my account and deny my son the opportunity to open a new one," she wrote.

She did not say the name of the bank. Nor do most victims of this practice. The bank simply sends a letter and encloses the balance. The victim then has to hunt around for an alternative, now with the black mark of having been canceled by another bank, which raises real questions. The problem is compounded by the absence of any real reason for the actions.

We do not know how widespread this practice is but, anecdotally, it has clearly escalated in recent years. The same has happened to the former president, and many of his supporters.

The Free Press comments: "Also debanked have been a number of Christian charities, including Indigenous Advance Ministries, a Memphis-based charity that does philanthropic work for orphans in Uganda, and Family Council, a pro-life charity based in Arkansas. According to Democratic lawmakers, many Arab and South-Asian Americans—who are considered 'high risk' because of being Muslim—have been debanked, too."