By Detroit FW Staff
A demonstration of over 80 people, organized by the group No Detention Centers in Michigan, took place on Tuesday, August 13, in Troy, Michigan. They demanded that Prudential Financial, Inc. immediately divest from The GEO Group and all other private prison companies.The GEO Group plans to open a private, for profit ICE detention center near Baldwin, Michigan later this year which the organizers aim to shut down.
Demonstrators marched to the front entrance of the Prudential financial services branch office building and delivered a letter to the Prudential office. The letter stated,
“By investing in GEO, you and your customers directly profit off the imprisonment of tens of thousands of people. The GEO Group has been subject to many lawsuits regarding inhuman conditions, improper medical care, torture, forced labor, sexual abuse, and deaths at their facilities. Furthermore, private detention centers run by GEO and other companies play a central role in the persecution of immigrants in the United States; today over 60% of people in ICE detention are held in private facilities, with GEO being the largest ICE contractor. We do not want our life insurance, mutual funds, retirement funds, etc. to support these atrocities!”
The national movement opposed to private prisons has thus far forced nine major banks to exit private prison investments, according to a recent text from Presente.org.
Protest in Dearborn wins demand to end to cooperation with ICE
Later in the day, more than 250 demonstrators gathered at the Dearborn police headquarters to demand that the Dearborn police end their contract with ICE and that all of the ICE detention camps be shutdown. The Dearborn police cooperates with ICE by providing short term detention of captured undocumented persons. The demonstration was organized by Jewish and Muslim groups to protest and to show solidarity with those impacted by unjust immigration policies.
The following week, on August 21, Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly Jr. announced that the city will not renew its contract to hold detainees for ICE.
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