"We Closed Our Account": Advocates Call for Boycott of Citizens Bank for Financing ICE Jails

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AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now! , democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We look now at a growing boycott against Citizens Bank amidst a campaign to pressure the corporation to divest from financing CoreCivic and GEO Group, two of the nation’s largest private operators of ICE jails. An interfaith coalition of dozens of religious groups in Boston said Citizens Bank has failed to adequately address its concern about financing private prisons, so the group is now withdrawing a million dollars from its estimated $14 million account with the bank. The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization plans to continue pulling out a million at a time, until the bank addresses its concerns.

This is senior minister of Old South Church in Boston, Bishop John Edgerton, explaining the decision on MS NOW .

REV . JOHN EDGERTON : We pulled a million dollars out today. We transferred it to another bank, because we want Citizens to stop doing this dirty business. Citizens is one of the only banks in the country that banks with and provides financing for CoreCivic and GEO Group, two of the most notorious private prison companies in this country. This year, Emmanuel Damas, who is a neighbor, a Boston resident, a 56-year-old man, he died in CoreCivic detention in Arizona from a toothache. He had a toothache. He complained about it. They didn’t give him proper care. His toothache became an infection, his infection became sepsis, and he died. And these are the practices that CoreCivic is notorious for and GEO Group is notorious for. And they will not be abusing our neighbors, not with our money.

AMY GOODMAN : That’s Reverend John Edgerton, speaking to Rachel Maddow.

A Citizens Bank spokesperson responded to Democracy Now! in a statement that said, quote, “Citizens is deeply committed to the communities we serve — investing $2 billion in 2025 to help build or preserve more than 8,000 affordable housing units, contributing over 265,000 volunteer hours, and partnering with nonprofits across our footprint. People have strong and often differing views on issues like immigration. It’s an important public policy debate — but it’s not the role of banks to set policy. Our role is to follow the law and apply our standards consistently as we serve all of our clients,” Citizens Bank said to Democracy Now!

For more, we’re joined by two guests here in New York. Julie Cohen is an Oscar-nominated director who’s made many films, including RBG , about the Supreme Court justice, Every Body , My Name is Pauli Murray . She and her husband, Paul Barrett, who is a former reporter with The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek , wrote an op-ed this weekend for NJ.com about their decision to close their accounts at Citizens Bank over the bank’s complicity with Delaney Hall and other ICE jails.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Thank you so much for being with us. Julie, let’s start with you. Talk about what this Citizens Bank campaign is all about, and about your personal decision.

JULIE COHEN : Yeah. The campaign to protest Citizens Bank is about their complicity. They finance both GEO Group, which operates Delaney Hall and other ICE detention, and CoreCivic, which operates the Dilley center in Texas, which you may remember is where Liam Ramos was held, and many other children are still being held. And the idea is to basically use our collective economic power to speak out about those who are kind of aiding and abetting the system.

I’m taken aback hearing the statement that Citizens Bank just gave you. I’m hearing it for the first time just now. But there was a phrase in there where he said they’re committed to upholding the law. Well, some of what’s going on — a lot of what’s going on in these ICE detention facilities is not lawful, because people are being detained there, immigrant neighbors, most of whom have not committed any crime beyond immigration violations, are being held there without due process. So, that’s unconstitutional, so they’re not upholding the law if they’re helping finance these facilities.

AMY GOODMAN : And explain. We’re talking about hunger and labor, a hunger and a labor strike inside the jail. The labor part of it isn’t talked about as much. While DHS denies this is going on, interestingly, the border czar, Tom Homan, has talked about force-feeding, though he has denied that the hunger strike is happening.

JULIE COHEN : Yeah, he’s done all kinds of things. He’s denied the hunger strike is happening. He’s saying that they might have to have to force-feed people, which you obviously wouldn’t have to do if there was no hunger strike. And he has also deeply inaccurately claimed that the reason — this just happened, I think, on Fox yesterday — he was saying the reason that the hunger strikers are striking is because they feel that they have the right to the ethnic food of their home countries — made up out of whole cloth. The issue is their unconstitution…