In fact, lobbying by the private prison industry may have allowed US immigration detention to balloon exponentially, explains Grace Meng of Human Rights Watch.
“Arbitrary and unnecessary detention is a major problem in the United States’ enormous system, no matter what the conditions for the inmates are,” she says.
“Arbitrary and unnecessary detention is a major problem in the US’s massive system in and of itself, regardless of conditions”, she says.
Largest pension funds and banks have withdrawn investments
Recent debate over Trump’s immigration policy has led a coalition of 250 US organizations to collect over a million signatures for US banks to divest their investments in CoreCivic and Geo Group.
So far, major banks JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, Barclays, Fifth Third Bank, and PNC have divested their shares from CoreCivic and GeoGroup.
In addition, the United States’ largest pension fund, CalPERS, has withdrawn its investments from the two companies, following Canadian pension fund CPPIB’s example in summer 2019.
Danish teachers and Velliv launch dialogue
From Velliv, Head of Responsible Investment Thomas H. Kjærgaard announced that pension fund advisors are currently in dialogue with CoreCivic and the Geo Group.
“This is a dialogue that we support and would like to continue. If the dialogue does not result in an improvement of the companies’ practices, we must assess whether the investments are right for us,” he wrote in an email.
From the teachers’ pension fund, Lærernes Pension, Investment Director Morten Malle announced that CoreCivic is currently “in yellow light” and thus on the pension fund’s observation list.
“We are closely following developments. If there is further documentation – e.g. sentencing – of the company’s non-compliance with human rights, the company will be ‘red-lighted’ and we will then sell the shares,” he wrote.
In particular, the American Federation of Teachers has pushed for US pension funds such as the California State Teachers Retirement System and the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund to withdraw their investments from CoreCivic and the GEO Group.
– Does it surprise you that your ethical guidelines apparently differ from both the majority opinion of American teachers as well as the policies of some of the largest US banks?
“We believe that Lærernes Pension excludes a larger part of the investment universe than most other investors, but that does not prevent the Lærernes Pension from investing in companies that other investors exclude,” Morten Malle wrote.