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While most major banks have cut ties with CoreCivic and The GEO Group, Citizens Bank is deepening its financial support for these companies, which are already holding more than half of the immigrants currently in ICE detention across the country.

Even as it publicly touts its commitment to “strengthening our communities,” Citizens Bank has played a key role in helping GEO and CoreCivic access more than $2.5 billion in financing, some of it approved earlier this year. This comes as the companies face a mountain of allegations, including forced labor and wrongful deaths due to understaffing and medical neglect at their facilities.

Join the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition and thousands of people across the country on June 6 to raise the volume on calls for the bank to stop lending to for-profit ICE prison companies. Organizers, you can get the details and a toolkit with background information, handouts, a press release and more here.

>Citizens Financial Group is facing pushback from shareholders, customers and activists who want the bank to cut ties with federal immigration detention center operators.

>The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization pledged to withdraw $1 million from its Citizens accounts Monday after CEO Bruce Van Saun allegedly went back on a promise to meet with them to discuss the bank’s relationship with CoreCivic and The GEO Group, which each own and operate U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 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.

>“We come today because we’re deeply troubled with what they’re doing with our money,” Rev. John Edgerton, whose church is part of the GBIO, said during a press conference held Monday in Boston. “People come to my church and they give money from their wages. They’re generous to our church, and we deposit it here at the bank, and then the bank uses it toward private prisons.”

>Numerous major banks cut financial ties with private prison companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group in 2019 amid public pressure. Citizens was not among them. In January, Citizens expanded GEO Group’s borrowing capacity by $100 million, a securities filing shows.

Northwest Bronx residents protest Citizens Bank ties to ICE detention companies

Two arrested outside Citizens Bank on Boylston Street during ICE protest