Customers and activists are turning up the heat on Citizens Bank over its ties to two companies that operate Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detention centers.
Entities including the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, Newport Democratic Citizens Committee and Greater Cleveland Congregations, as well as two Democratic Massachusetts state representatives and one New Jersey city, have all either defunded their Citizens accounts or pledged to do so if the bank doesn’t reconsider financing CoreCivic and the GEO Group, which each operate numerous ICE detention centers.
Organizers for the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition said Citizens has given CoreCivic and GEO $2.5 billion in financing, and that more than 20 people have died in the care of ICE facilities owned by these groups.
GBIO announced Wednesday that it was withdrawing $2 million from its Citizens accounts in addition to the $1 million it withdrew early last month.
It also published a report detailing what it called “the human cost of private detention” alleging, among other things, that death rates in ICE detention have reached a 22-year high.
“Our congregants, neighbors, family and friends, including those who are recent immigrants, need to be assured that major institutions like Citizens Bank that we rely on are not directly enabling entities that are causing legitimate fear and harm,” Pastor James Yansen of Hyde Park Seventh-day Adventist Church, a GBIO member, said in a prepared statement. “If any of the items in this report are false or misleading, if CoreCivic and GEO Group are not responsible for these things, we hope they will tell us. But so far, there has been no such explanation.”
Also on Wednesday, Jersey City, New Jersey became the first municipality to publicly divest its Citizens account in response to the bank’s ICE ties. GEO Group operates Delaney Hall, an ICE detention facility in nearby Newark that’s gained national attention for its conditions and alleged human rights abuses.
Jersey City did not publicly state the amount of its divestiture, and a spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Citizens Bank made a choice to finance the caging of human beings for profit,” said Mayor James Solomon in a press announcement. “Jersey City is making a choice too: we will not be complicit, and we’ve already begun the process of pulling city funds.”
A Citizens spokesperson told ESG Dive sister publication Banking Dive that it’s a “relationship-based bank with a strong record of corporate responsibility,” noting its $2 billion in equity and loan commitments last year to finance thousands of units of affordable housing, and adding that it provided $20 million in grants last year to nonprofits.
Previously, GBIO and its member congregations had over $20 million in Citizens accounts. But at Citizens annual shareholder meeting April 23, GBIO representatives, who are shareholders, pressed Citizens CEO Bruce Van Saun about the bank’s ICE ties, requesting a meeting with him to discuss them, and putting the lender on notice of GBIO’s intention to withdraw funds.
GBIO representatives said Van Saun agreed to schedule a meeting, but the meeting did not materialize.
In a letter to GBIO seen by Banking Dive, a Citizens representative wrote that the meeting would “not be productive…at this time,” citing GBIO’s public campaign against Citizens, which the representative called “false and misleading.”
“We hope that you operate going forward with a more objective and balanced view, which is in your organization’s best long-term interests,” the Citizens representative wrote GBIO.
GBIO’s second withdrawal comes four days after a widespread day of protest Saturday at Citizens locations across its network. Organizers counted some 140 protest locations.
At one such protest in Boston, Massachusetts State Reps. Erika Uyterhoeven and Mike Connolly pledged to remove their respective funds from Citizens accounts. Uyterhoeven is removing more than $100,000, she said.
“We respect the right to peaceful protest and are proud of our commitment to clients, customers, and communities across the country and across industries,” the Citizens spokesperson said in an email to Banking Dive. “The claim that Citizens is not committed to its communities is simply untrue.
“At the same time, it is not the role of banks to set public policy,” the spokesperson added. “Our responsibility is to follow the law and apply our standards consistently as we serve all of our clients.”
