Poloniex is a ponzi exchange and IMO a honeypot. I'd stay away from them. I have friends would have millions in crypto frozen there with slim chances of withdrawal. They had to hire an attorney to get them to begin the withdrawal process and nine months later its still ongoing. If they're freezing large amounts of funds it means theres a liquidity issue. That's probably why they impose their own internal fiat level KYC/AML standards on a crypto-to-crypto exchange to prevent large withdrawals. There is no law or statue that compels them to enforce AML/KYC on crypto-to-crypto exchanges. Interestingly their rise to popularity is also a direct result of Monero's Oasis DNM scam since they were the main XMR exchange.
Utter nonsense - I've just been on a call with a law firm in the USA, and they confirmed that at least half the states in the USA have licensing and AML/KYC requirements for crypto-to-crypto pairs.