Citizens Bank Cuts Ties With Prison Companies After De-ICE Pressure Campaign

A coalition of social justice organizations is celebrating a recent decision by Citizens Bank to sever its financial ties with two companies that operate immigration prisons on behalf of the Trump administration.

The national bank, which is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, has faced significant pushback from protesters for providing more than $2.5 billion in financing to CoreCivic and the GEO Group, two private prison companies that work directly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Demonstrations escalated in April when members of the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition protested outside of Citizens Bank corporate headquarters during its annual shareholders’ meeting.

While that demonstration largely took place outside the building, some shareholders who are part of the coalition expressed disdain with the company during the meeting.

Notably, every major bank in the country has ended its ties with CoreCivic and GEO Group.

Earlier this month, Citizens Bank released a press statement indicating that it was finally ending its financial relationships with GEO Group and CoreCivic. The bank insisted that the move was unrelated to protest actions.

“Our practice has been to respect the privacy of our client relationships and we do not generally comment publicly on individual clients,” the bank said, claiming that the company had been “dragged” into discussing “what is largely a political matter.”

The bank continued to dismiss the protests in its statement, saying that it was closing accounts with the two companies “based on changed commercial circumstances,” adding that the move “does not reflect any change in our view regarding these companies’ business models or operations.”

Despite these statements, the De-ICE Coalition said it viewed the action as a win.

“Today’s announcement that Citizens Bank will exit its current lending relationships with private prison giants CoreCivic and The GEO Group is an important victory for the people who refused to let a major bank finance human suffering brought on by ICE detention activities of the current federal administration,” the coalition said in a statement shared with Truthout, adding:

While Citizens Bank frames this exit as a purely ‘business decision’ dictated by evolving commercial circumstances, the reality is clear: public conscience and community resistance matter and have paid off. As we have said from the beginning, doing some good does not cancel out the harm caused by these business relationships.

The coalition added that it still has questions about the moves, and that the De-ICE campaign “will continue” to monitor Citizens Bank’s current and future business relationships.

“More customers are continuing to consider terminating their relationships with Citizens Bank. Until we get all questions answered, we expect this will continue as customers align their personal values with banks they do business with,” the coalition explained.