The Human Cost of Citizens Bank’s Ties to ICE Prisons

The Human Cost of Citizens Bank’s Ties to ICE Prisons

By Peyton Fleming

Even as people in ICE detention are dying in record numbers and hunger and labor strikes are spreading, the private prison companies that make the system possible are celebrating these days.

For starters, they are wallowing in money, thanks to a new $70 billion infusion from Congress for what is already the largest detention and deportation crackdown in the nation’s history. More than half is going to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), directly benefitting private prison giants, CoreCivic and GEO Group. Both companies have long track records of alleged neglect and abuse at facilities like New Jersey’s Delaney Hall, where detained immigrants are in week four of a strike.

The windfall doesn’t stop with funding. Newly rolled-out ICE regulations have weakened key protections for people held at for-profit detention centers – including rolling back safeguards against labor exploitation, which is already the subject of multiple class action lawsuits against both prison companies. According to the Washington Post, GEO Group actively lobbied for the changes, a task made easier given that ICE is being run by a former GEO Group executive, David Venturella.

It’s no wonder GEO Group and CoreCivic’s share prices are soaring this month.

It also deepens questions about Citizens Bank’s long history as the key financier behind CoreCivic and GEO Group’s meteoric growth and record profits. Despite mounting pressure from faith-based organizations and over 140 activist groups demanding the bank sever ties, Citizens has balked.

When pressed, Citizens says it stands by its clients “through both good times and challenges, provided they meet our standards and operate in a lawful manner.” It has also publicly minimized reports of facility mistreatment as possibly being “exaggerated.”

A devastating report released last week by the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) directly refutes that.

Drawing on lawsuits, state and federal reports, legal settlements and other documented harms, the 20-page report shows “a pattern of systemic failure” at CoreCivic and GEO Group facilities.

“Medical care is frequently found to be inadequate. Facilities are regularly understaffed,” the report states. “Children are detained in conditions that leading pediatric health experts say cause lasting psychological harm. Detainees are paid $1 a day for labor that keeps facilities running, allegedly under threat of solitary confinement. Records have been falsified.”

Tragically, ICE detention deaths are spiking, as well – with nearly 50 deaths since January 2025. “Death rates in ICE custody, including in GEO and CoreCivic facilities, have reached a 22-year high,” the report says.

With populations and deaths surging in ICE detention, Citizens’ financial ties to these companies – helping them acquire over $2.5 billion in loans, bonds and credit lines since 2012 – are deplorable. While other major banks ended their relationships with private prison companies in 2019, Citizens Bank has strengthened its ties.

By its own choice, Citizens Bank is enabling and profiting from a brutal mass incarceration campaign that is ripping families, communities and the entire country apart.

Until the bank ends these relationships, it will see more frequent and larger protests outside bank branches across the country. It will also see more customers, both large and small, closing their accounts and pulling their money, as part of the ‘Not with Our Money, Citizens’ campaign, a joint effort of GBIO and the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition.

GBIO has already pulled $3 million of its deposits and vowed to pull more if changes aren’t made. Last week, the city of Jersey City, New Jersey’s second largest city, voted to move $265 million out of the bank.

The financial bleeding will only worsen until the bank does the right thing.