John, Geo Group, Donald Trump's favourite private prison company, helped build his concentration camps along the Mexican-US border where kids were separated from their parents. In Australia and the UK, courts have found Geo Group responsible for deaths in its prisons. Leading banks like JP Morgan, Barclay’s, and BNP decided to stop loaning money to private prison companies costing Geo Group roughly one billion dollars in loans and its stock price to plummet. But we can do better. Geo Group has a 900 million dollar loan due in a couple of months and the company is scrambling for money, begging banks to fund its inhumane business. So it’s time for us to take action to cut off the private prison company lifeline for good. Call on HSBC, Deutsche Bank, and US regional banks to stop financing private prisons now. Loaning to private prison companies means that banks are taking customers' savings so the bank itself can profit off the interest payments of companies that separate families, abuse migrants, and kill prisoners. That's why the decade of work from organizers to push Bank of America, TD Bank, Wells Fargo, and numerous pension funds around the world to end financial ties with notorious prison companies is so important. Yet, a few previous financiers have stayed silent – most notably European banking giant HSBC and Deutsche Bank. Meanwhile, some regional US banks -- Citizens, Pinnacle, First Tennessee, and Synovus -- are also rumoured to be interested in providing loans to Geo. We know that when we call on financial institutions to stop financing private prison companies such as Geo Group, they listen. In 2020, Ekō members helped launch a campaign calling on TD Bank to divest from Geo Group. And within 24 hours, TD promised to recommit to never investing in Geo again. And through the pressure of tens of thousands of Ekō members, including hundreds who showed up at Canada Pension Fund’s public events, we forced a giant 300 billion dollar pension plan to stop its investment in Geo Group. 2024 could spell the end of the US prison industrial complex. US President Joe Biden could keep his campaign promise to end for-profit immigration detention in the last year of his current term. And if we can cut off the money line to Geo Group, it could be the final blow to its current business model. But only if we take action now. Stop financing private prisons now.  Thanks for all that you do, More information:
HSBC's Financial Ties to Human Rights Violations in US Immigration Detention Facilities run by CoreCivic and Geo Group
BankTrack. 20 May 2022. Geo Group Runs out of Creditors as 100% of its banking partners says no to private prisons Forbes. 30 September 2019. |
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