Force Wells Fargo and other #BackersOfHate to stop funding immigrant detention

"Established 1852. Re-established 2018?"1

Petition to Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock: "Stop profiting off of immigrant detention and the separation of families. Immediately divest from private-prison companies and cease offering lending facilities to companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic." Add your name:

Wells Fargo is so desperate to reform its scandal-plagued image that it recently resorted to an ad campaign with the tagline: "Established 1852. Re-established 2018."1 Wells Fargo executives probably don't want people to hear that the "re-established" company is currently getting rich off of Trump's heartless policy of separating families and detaining immigrants in private prisons.2 Wall Street banks like JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock and Wells Fargo are heavily invested in awful, private-prison companies and make loans that keep them in business.3 That's why we're teaming up with our friends at Presente and Moms Rising to demand that #BackersOfHate divest and stop funding Trump's racist policies. This Wednesday, I am delivering petition signatures directly to Wells Fargo headquarters in San Francisco to make clear that profiting from the pain of immigrant communities is morally wrong and bad for business.  Force Wells Fargo and other #BackersOfHate to stop funding immigrant detention. Click here to sign the petition. Who wins by putting more and more immigrants in jail? Big banks, that's who. Private prison companies, like CoreCivic and GEO Group, are lucrative businesses don't just enrich investors, they lobby for more punitive policies towards immigrants and citizens alike. Sixty percent of Trump's incarcerated immigrants are held in private prisons built by companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group.4 Trump's policies could grow the multi-billion dollar private-prison industry by more than 580 percent in just one year. No wonder JPMorgan Chase alone has increased its private-prison holdings by a shocking 9,600 percent since Trump took office. Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock all hold stock in companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group – and these companies' stock prices have skyrocketed in recent weeks.5 The big banks also keep GEO Group and CoreCivic in business with lucrative loans. Those two companies are set up as real estate investment trusts, which allows them to dodge some taxes but prevents them from holding a lot of cash. That means they can't pay bills without frequent loans – loans that make a lot of money for the banks. In 2017, GEO Group and CoreCivic paid their lenders $217 million.6 All Wells Fargo and others would have to do is stop making these loans, and CoreCivic and GEO Group could no longer afford to keep people in cages. Force Wells Fargo and other #BackersOfHate to stop funding immigrant detention. Click below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/wells_fargo_immigration?t=7&akid=30140%2E3130208%2EITSgJ- Corporate #BackersOfHate, especially Wells Fargo which is trying to polish its corporate image, need to hear that Americans won't tolerate them overlooking basic morals in the desperate pursuit of profit. They must immediately drop their stock in private prisons and cease offering lending facilities to the companies responsible for carrying out Trump's cruel immigration policies. -Nicole Regalado, CREDO Action Add your name: References: James Peltz, "Wells Fargo launches ad campaign to leave accounts scandal behind. Not everyone is buying it," The Los Angeles Times, May 9, 2018. Make the Road New York and Center for Popular Democracy, "Private Detention Industry Expected to Swell from 'Zero Tolerance; at the Border," June 26, 2018. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

Tell JPMorgan Chase: Stop financing private prisons and immigrant detention centers

Petition to all major banks that finance or profit from private prisons and immigrant detention, including JPMorgan Chase, reads: “Stop financing corporations like CoreCivic and The Geo Group that build and manage private prisons and immigrant detention centers and make enormous profits from the suffering of immigrants and communities of color." Add your name:

Who wins when the Trump regime fails to reunite families it tore apart at the border? Banks like JPMorgan Chase. JPMorgan Chase is one of the biggest investors in CoreCivic and The Geo Group, private prison corporations that build and manage hundreds of horrific immigrant detention centers across the country.1 Trump's mass incarceration and deportation agenda is a boon for their business and the banks that finance them stand to make millions from the pain of immigrant communities. To end Trump's war on immigrants, we must expose and hold accountable the financial institutions that are enabling and profiting from his cruel and racist regime. Speak out now to demand that JPMorgan Chase stop financing Trump's hate. Tell JPMorgan Chase and all major banks: Stop financing private prison and immigrant detention corporations. Click here to sign the petition. Public pressure grows stronger by the day to free and reunite the families Trump separated at the border and imprisoned in inhumane detention facilities. But his cruel administration could not care less. It just missed its second court-imposed deadline to reunite the more than 2,500 children it ripped away from families at the border, and has no plans to roll back the racist policies that created this crisis in the first place.2 Instead, Trump and his craven lapdogs in Congress are trying to ramp up these attacks. ICE locked up more than 30,000 undocumented immigrants a day in inhumane and overcrowded detention centers in 2016.3 Trump’s hateful administration just increased ICE’s incarceration quota to 80,000 immigrants a day and is planning to expand the department’s workforce and infrastructure to reach that daily goal.4 Congressional Republicans are working hard to make this xenophobic nightmare a reality. They just advanced dangerous bills in both chambers of Congress that would expand ICE and CBP and hand Trump tens of millions of dollars to build his southern border wall and more ICE run prisons.5,6 If Trump and his heartless party succeed at passing these bills, private prison corporations, and the banks that finance, them will make huge profits. Immigrants will suffer even more. Private prison corporations CoreCivic and The Geo Group are notorious for exploiting immigrant detainees for cheap labor and forcing them to live in inhumane conditions.7 Nine detainees have filed a class-action lawsuit against The Geo Group for allegedly forcing more than 50,000 immigrants imprisoned in its detention centers to work for less than one dollar a day.8 The U.S. Bureau of Prisons canceled its contract with a CoreCivic prison in New Mexico after reports of its cruel treatment of sick inmates gained national attention.9 Now, ICE has contracted with the same prison to detain immigrants, without demanding any changes to the institution’s practices. That is unacceptable. Trump and Republicans’ immigration crackdown means more immigrant arrests, more taxpayer funded corrupt detention facilities and more business for morally bankrupt private prison corporations. We must do everything we can to stop their xenophobic agenda. If we join together now and use our power as consumers and customers to force big banks to get out of the mass incarceration and deportation business, we can block Trump and Republicans' racist plans. That's why we're teaming up with our friends at Make the Road New York, Mom’s Rising, Presente and other members of the Families Belong Together Corporate Accountability Coalition to make sure JPMorgan Chase feels the full force of our resistance. Will you add your name now? Tell JPMorgan Chase and all major banks: Stop financing private prison and immigrant detention corporations. Click the link below to sign the petition. https://act.credoaction.com/sign/jpmc_backersofhate_2018?t=7&akid=29488%2E3130208%2Ej02KNm - Nicole Regalado, CREDO Action Add your name: References: Katie Lobosco, "Immigrant advocates attack banks for financing private prisons," CNN, July 26, 2018. Patrick Greenfield, "Family separation: hundreds of migrant children still not reunited with families in US," The Guardian, July 26, 2018. Madison Pauly, "The Private Prison Industry Is Licking Its Chops Over Trump’s Deportation Plans," Mother Jones, Feb, 21, 2017. Ibid. Niv Elis, "House panel advances homeland security bill with $5 billion in border wall funding," The Hill, July 25, 2018. Ali Rogin, John Parkinson and Elizabeth Brown-Kaiser, "Government shutdown looms with impasse over border wall," ABC News, July 30, 2018. Madison Pauly, "How a Private Prison Company Used Detained Immigrants for Free Labor," Mother Jones, April 3, 2017. Ibid. Pauly, "The Private Prison Industry Is Licking Its Chops Over Trump’s Deportation Plans."