In a stunning reversal Monday the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) agreed to suspend its investigation and request for a civil investigation demand (CID) of Nexus Services, the company announced in a press release.
Nexus filed for a preliminary injunction last week after Richard Cordray had resigned as director of the CFPB. In a conference hearing Monday, Nexus said the bureau dropped its demands, leaving the injunction moot.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Nexus CEO Mike Donovan said in the release, “and it’s about time. My company has already spent tens of thousands of dollars dealing with the CFPB just to get to this point. That money could have been better spent reuniting families separated by immigration detention and helping immigrants start a new life here in America.”
Nexus is a Virginia-based firm that handles immigration bonds, which the company said has helped free more than 25,000 mothers and fathers from immigration detention since 2012.
“This is a win for Nexus Services, and all today’s ruling demonstrates why it is always important to stand up and fight when the government threatens to violate your rights,” Donovan said about today’s outcome. “Today is an important day for all Americans, small business owners, and above all, the clients Nexus serves.”
Nexus said it is a service provider for people who are clients of sureties issuing immigration bonds, and it never lends money. It contends the CFPB was outside its jurisdiction in trying to regulate a service provider for people with immigration bonds.
In the release the company said its case could set “an important precedent that would be helpful to thousands of small businesses across the country.”
If Nexus wins, the company said, small businesses will be safe from the reach of the CFPB and its costly demands for private information about employees and clients.
“This is an important constitutional turning point,” Donovan said. “If CFPB gets its way, privacy will be dead in America.”