Apparently having a Spanish last name is equal to fraud, according to a manager at a local U.S. Bank branch in San Diego.

That’s what immigration lawyer Julia Cassels had to face when she said U.S. Bank put a hold on the checks she received and deposited in her account from clients with Spanish and Russian last names recently. As an immigration lawyer, she said many of her clients are Latinos with Spanish surnames.

“On Thursday (June 26), I was advised by my business banker via email that there was an issue with my business account. I called the branch, spoke with one of the women who worked there, and later the branch manager, Chuck,” Cassels wrote on a blog post on her website.

“Chuck informed me that while the deposits of client funds I made on Tuesday had been ‘made available’ or cleared on Wednesday, a retroactive hold was placed on the checks, after I had distributed the funds, causing my account to go negative,” Cassels’ post continues.

“Chuck, the branch manager, then asked, ‘Do you regularly take checks from people with names like Martinez and Kadirov or whatever it is?’” Cassels said.

She immediately made it known to the branch manager that his reasoning was plain racist.

“I thought it was completely crazy!” she said in a recent interview. “This is ridiculous. I’m absolutely outraged. This was completely inappropriate. It was completely racist.”

A U.S. Bank costumer for more than 12 years, including a paid-off mortgage, Cassels said she couldn’t explain the bank manager’s behavior.

Susan Beatty, spokesperson for U.S. Bank, couldn’t explain it either.

“Client service is our number one priority at U.S. Bank,” Beatty wrote in an email to La Prensa San Diego. “We apologize for any miscommunication in this situation and are working to understand how to avoid this in the future. We are not able to speak to the specifics of our customer’s accounts, but we do have policies and procedures in place to protect our customers regarding new activity for new accounts.”

Cassels is not happy with that “response” from U.S. Bank corporate office.

“Corporate’s response does not give me any hope that they are in fact ‘working to understand how to avoid this in the future.’ Their answer is a non-answer,”Cassels said.

She is already looking for another bank to take her accounts.

“And to be clear, I believe the issue with U.S. Bank is two-fold,” she said. “First, the quite obvious outrageous racist statement made as previously discussed at length.

Secondly, this practice of retroactively placing holds on funds without notice to the account holder is damaging for business owners. We need to make payroll, pay our vendors, and run our businesses. We can’t do those things if our funds are available one day and not the next day without warning.”

To read Immigration Lawyer Julia Cassels’ ordeal with U.S. Bank, please visit her website at juliacassels.squarespace.com.