The Broward Group of the Sierra Club has passed a resolution (see below) opposing construction of a 1,500 bed detention facility by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in the Town of Southwest Ranches in western Broward County. The center would be run under the auspices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has yet to award a contract to CCA for this project.
The Sierra Club objects to the proposed facility because it would draw excessive amounts of water from the Biscayne Aquifer – approximately 180,000 gallons per day – at a time when the regional water supply is already strained by existing consumption and changes in rainfall patterns. The facility would also contribute to Broward County’s existing, and still completely unresolved, waste water disposal problem. Located only about a mile from the edge of Broward’s Everglades, the project would further degrade the gateway to what remains of Broward County’s natural areas – even while the County plans on taking control of the nearby Everglades Holiday Park for the purpose of expanded ecotourism.
“Building a large structure that will involve intensive water use, when water supplies are already overtaxed, and building it along the perimeter of development in Broward County, in close proximity to the Everglades, will greatly harm Broward’s residents and ecology”, said Mara Shlackman, Chair of the Broward Sierra Club.
“A massive structure of this size has no business being built in this location. The more humans encroach on the Everglades, the less open space remains for people and wildlife. Buffer zones of lighter development around protected public lands are essential”, said Judy Kuchta, who regularly leads outings into the Everglades for the group.
IMMIGRANTS ARE NOT FOR SALE
via Cuéntame
DREAMERS confront Southwest Ranches council members on proposed mega for-profit detention center in their town. This is the first time that elected officials from Southwest Ranches are questioned directly by immigrants about their plan to build what could be one of the largest immigration detention centers in the entire country, only for profit. The students offered to buy their representatives back!
Politicians and public officials in the state have made public their support for the facility, even if there is one only 30 miles away! CCA makes money every night an immigrant fills their bed spaces. Southwest Ranches constituents have accused their officials of “being in bed” with private prison lobbyist.
Private prisons have made more than $1 million in campaign contributions in Florida.
Meet Town Bankrupted By Private Prisons
The GEO Group, along with CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) are the two largest private prison and immigrant detention operators in the country. At an average rate of $200 per night/per inmate, private prison operators profit over $5 billion a year. How do they do it? Like con-artists, they lure town councils and local government officials with promises of easy money and increased revenue. However, what they don’t tell them is at what cost!
Littlefield, Texas found out the hard way. The GEO Group promised increased “product” (aka detained immigrants) and alleged prosperity for a town that was struggling with an economic crisis. Instead, what Littlefield got was a mega-complex private facility, an additional $10 million contractual debt, and a fleeing population.
CCA and the GEO Group have spent millions lobbying local, state and federal officials and in campaign contributions to candidates running for these offices. They do so to have more facilities built and to increase their already bloated profits — even if these immigrant detention centers are not needed.
JAN 24: PROTEST BIG BANKS THAT INVEST IN PRIVATE PRISONS!
Stop the CCA/GEO Immigrant Moneymaking Machine!
Invest in the people, not in prisons!
Next Tuesday, January 24th, at 1:30 pm, we will protest the GAIM USA Conference in Boca Raton, FL to demand that major financial institutions divest their holdings in the for-profit prison industry.
The GAIM USA conference is the largest annual gathering of the 1% in the US: hedge funds and large institutional investment managers. Major investors in private prisons who will be participating include: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, General Electric, Vanguard, FMR/Fidelity, BlackRock, Lazard, and others.
These big financial institutions are major investors in CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) and GEO, the nation’s two largest for-profit companies. These are two immigration prison monsters with very close ties to Florida: The GEO Group has its headquarters in Boca Raton, and CCA has plans to build a massive immigration prison in Southwest Broward.
Join us to demand the 1% divest their holdings in private prison companies like CCA and the GEO Group.
The 1% and immigration prisons
Over the past three years, hundreds of thousands of non-criminal immigrants have been subjected to excessively abusive treatment in for-profit prisons run for the federal government by the Geo Group (GEO) and Corrections of America (CCA). These big financial institutions are major investors in CCA and GEO, the nation’s two largest for-profit companies. Enlace is coordinating the Prison Divestment Campaign that is asking institutions, public and private, to divest and cut all political ties from the prison industry.
For-profit prison companies, which rely on billions of tax dollars as their primary source of revenue, have successfully lobbied federal and state governments to adopt and implement policies that have led to the incarceration of over one million immigrants over the past three years. Recent reports by the Houston Chronicle and PBS showed that rape and sexual abuse of detainees is rampant across the increasingly privatized federal immigrant detention system.
Wells Fargo, a recipient of billions of bailout dollars, is a major contributor to politicians who have championed the increased incarceration of immigrants. Wells Fargo has also played a key role supporting GEO business ventures.
Peter Cervantes-Gautschi stated “The United Methodist Church divested its entire holdings from CCA and GEO; these investors should follow the UMC’s responsible investment example. It is immoral to make $ millions from putting human beings in cages.” The UMC Pension is one of the largest faith-based pension funds in the United States and ranks among the top 100 pension funds in the country. Prominent hedge fund, Pershing Square Management Fund, divested its over $180 million in CCA holdings after the launch of the Prison Divestment Campaign last year.
Since the divestment campaign began on May 12, 2011. CCA’s stock value dropped from $26.02 to $20.67, a 21% drop at year’s end. Geo Group stock has taken a similar plunge, from a high of $26.12 on May 12 to $16.75 on December 31, a drop of over 34%. The campaign has hammered steadily at Geo through one of its major investors, Wells Fargo.
Prison Divestment Campaign Causes CCA and GEO Stock to Plummet
Via National Prison Divestment Campaign
Since the divestment campaign began on May 12, 2011. CCA’s stock value dropped from $26.02 to $20.67, a 21% drop at year’s end. Geo Group stock has taken a similar plunge, from a high of $26.12 on May 12 to $16.75 on December 31, 2011, a drop of over 34%.
The campaign has been exposing CCA and Geo as the major financers of Arizona Copycat laws, which has led to more immigrants and people of color being wrongfully imprisoned. These for-profit prisons have a long history of lobbying for laws that increase penalties and incarcerations for immigrants and people of color, supporting controversial bills like the 3 strikes laws and minimum mandatory sentencing that has created massive profits for these corporations and their investors.
The tables are turning, people are finding out the dirty secrets of the for-profit prison industry. No one wants to invest in a corporation that is actively involved in finding new ways of putting humans in cages where they are apt to be sexually molested or otherwise abused for the sole purpose of increasing a profit margin. These corporations run prisons like tenement hotels, they spend millions in lobbying and political contributions to ensure they are filled to the max at taxpayer expense,” said Peter Cervantes-Gautschi Executive Director of Enlace.
The Prison Divestment Campaign has helped convinced major hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management and the United Methodist Church to divest their entire holdings from for-profit prisons. Many individuals have also cancelled their accounts from private prison industry financers, Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
Enlace coordinates the Prison Divestment Campaign which brings together Occupy Wall Street, immigrant rights groups, criminal justice groups and religious organizations to expose for-profit prison companies as the money behind the wave of anti-immigrant laws and policies. Together they represent a growing movement demanding corporate accountability by ensuring people over profit. Major prison investors include Fidelity, Vanguard, General Electric, Scopia, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.
For more information contact Enlace at info@enlaceintl.org or 213-284-3802.
United Methodist Church will not invest in private prisons
Broward Residents protest a potential massive CCA immigration prison in their neighborhood
Board sells $1 million in stock in CCA and the GEO Group
Private prison companies are big business. But, is it moral for United Methodists to make a profit from the incarceration of people?
The United Methodist Church’s pension agency has pondered that question since May. The Board of Pension and Health Benefits announced Jan. 3 its decision to prohibit investments in companies that derive more than 10 percent of their revenue from the management and operation of prison facilities.
“It came down to that profiting from the incarceration of others was just not consistent with our view of what the (denomination’s) Social Principles ask for,” said David Zellner, the board’s chief investment officer.
The agency has the authority to make investment decisions.
The week after Christmas, the board sold about $1 million in stock in two companies that fell under the new screen — Corrections Corporation of America, more commonly called CCA, and the GEO Group.
With almost $17 billion in assets, the United Methodist program is the largest church pension fund — and 80th largest pension fund — in the United States. Some 74,000 clergy and lay personnel participate in the denomination’s pension and benefits programs.
One of those participants is the Rev. V. H. “Sonnye” Dixon, lead pastor of Hobson United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tenn., who applauded the decision. He was an observer at a Nov. 14 demonstration at the CCA headquarters in Nashville.
“You want your investment in the pension fund to be placed with companies that are doing well, but you don’t want them putting money in companies that are doing well at the expense of the dignity of other people,” he said.
Incarceration is necessary at times, he acknowledged. However, Dixon sees private prison companies as more interested in pursuing a profit than promoting possible rehabilitation and re-entry.
“It’s just something that I don’t think we as The United Methodist Church should be participating in in any kind of way,” he said.
Requests to divest
The board’s decision comes after the United Methodist Interagency Task Force on Immigration first raised concerns about private, for-profit prisons, which governments around the globe increasingly use to detain unauthorized immigrants.
Allegations of widespread abuse and neglect have come with the expansion of private dentention. The Australian government, for example, dropped its contract with the GEO Group in 2003 after a commission found detained children were denied health care and subject to cruel treatment.
The pension agency later received requests to divest from prison companies from Metodistas Asociados Representando Ia Causa de los Hispanos Americanos, the denomination’s Hispanic caucus, and a petition signed by more than 1,170 United Methodists.
The United Methodist Board of Church and Society, the agency charged with advocating for the denomination’s Social Principles, created the petition. Bill Mefford, the agency’s director of civil and human rights, said he found troubling news reports about a violent private juvenile facility in Mississippi that houses teens with adults.
Phoenix Area Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño, co-chair of the denomination’s immigration task force, said the group first learned of the situation with private prisons through the ecumenical partners that work on immigration concerns.
“The board of pension was very good about doing all the research into not only what it means to invest in these for-profit detention centers but also setting that alongside how we invest … in line with our Christian faith,” she said. “This is a win for the connection.”
History of socially responsible investment
People before profits
United Methodist groups, like many other religious organizations, long have participated in what the financial industry calls socially responsible investing.
The Book of Discipline, the denomination’s law book, requires that all church agencies and institutions, including hospitals and universities, “make a conscious effort” to invest in line with United Methodist Social Principles.
The book specifically urges church institutions to “endeavor to avoid” businesses that engage in racial discrimination, violate human rights or use forced labor. The book also exhorts United Methodist entities to avoid investments that support gambling, pornography, alcoholic beverages, tobacco or the production of nuclear armaments.
As a rule, the United Methodist pension board and other church-related groups will not invest in a company that receives more than 10 percent of its revenue from the objectionable products. With this announcement, the pension board is adding companies that manage or operate prison facilities to the screen-out list.
“These companies that are responsible for operating prisons were such a small portion of the investment universe that it would not violate our fiduciary responsibility to implement this sixth screen,” Zellner said.
The pension agency has amended its Statement of Administrative Investment Policy to say: “Investments will not knowingly be made in any company/corporation in which 10 percent or more of gross revenue is derived from the management or operation of federal, state, county, or municipal correctional facilities (jails, prisons, penitentiaries, detention centers, prison camps, transfer centers).”
Vidette Bullock Mixon, the pension board’s corporate relations director, said the board’s Principles and Fiduciary committees reviewed several social principles including the following two to inform their decision.
The second calls for the creation of a justice system that provides “for the care and restoration of victims, offenders, criminal justice officials, and the community as a whole.”
The board’s decision also came after a months-long investigation that included visits to a private prison near Indianapolis as well as a government- run correctional facility in Joliet, Ill. Pension staff members also met with CCA management and engaged in conversation with the GEO Group.
According to the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, a number of faith-based investors have engaged in shareholder advocacy with private prison companies to encourage humane treatment of detainees.
Barbara Boigegrain, the pension board’s top executive, said agency directors and staff did discuss whether further engagement with these companies would be productive. The board of directors ultimately decided it did not want to invest in the detention industry.
“We don’t believe we can ask companies that distill and sell alcohol, not to distill and sell alcohol. We simply do not want to profit from a business that does that,” she said. “(It’s) the same thing with prison companies.”
Daniel Carrillo, campaign coordinator for the National Prison Divestment Campaign, said he thinks the pension board is the first religious group to withdraw investments entirely from private-prison companies.
What other groups are doing
The pension agency is just one of many United Methodist groups — including universities, hospitals and foundations — that oversee investments.
Byrd L. Bonner, executive director of the United Methodist Church Foundation, said foundation directors plan to discuss whether to continue investing in private prison companies at their May meeting. The foundation manages endowments for church agencies and other general church initiatives.
General Conference, the denomination’s top lawmaking body, next meets April 24-May 4 in Tampa, Fla. The quadrennial gathering often takes up petitions for the denomination to withdraw investments from certain types of companies.
Bonner, who chairs the denomination’s Socially Responsible Investment Task Force, and other church leaders do not know of any petitions heading to this spring’s General Conference that specifically seek divestment from private-prison companies.
Boigegrain said she feels such action is unnecessary.
“We don’t expect or desire any action by General Conference with regards to this additional screen,” she said. “We think the language that is in the Book of Discipline still pertains.”
Estrella de Miami Heat, Udonis Haslem, “extremadamente molesto” por prisión de inmigrantes
- Udonis Haslem, estrella de Miami Heat, se opone a prision de inmigrantes
La semana pasada, UdonisHaslem, nativo de Miami y estrella del equipo de baloncesto Miami Heat, envió una carta al Ayuntamiento de Southwest Ranches expresando su oposición a los planes de construir un enorme centro de detención de inmigrantes en la zona. Esta cárcel de inmigrantes será una de las más grandes del país, con capacidad para al menos 1.500 camas, y es uno de los seis nuevos centros de detención de inmigrantes que el gobierno usara para ampliar la capacidad dedetención de inmigrantes.
“Estoy extremadamente molesto porque ustedes están adelantando conversaciones con la Corporación CCA y con el Departamento deSeguridad Nacional …”, escribe Haslem, quien vive en Southwest Ranches con su familia desde el 2007. “Yo no apoyo esto de ninguna manera y espero que este proyecto no suceda.”
La carta fue enviada por correo electrónico a la organización de residentes que se oponen al centro de detención el pasado jueves por la tarde, y fue entregada en elAyutamiento directamente por la tía de Haslem esa misma noche cuando cientos de residentes se reunieron para protestar por la prisión.
“La carta de Haslem muestra la magnitud de la oposición a esta prisión. El Alcalde Jeff Nelson, los Miembros del Consejo y el Abogado de la Ciudad, Keith Poliakoff, han tratado de ignorarnos, marginarnos o incluso decir que no somos tantos. ¿Dirán lo mismo a una figura pública como Haslem?”, pregunta Bill Di Scipio, un residente de Southwest Ranches. “Muchos residentes como Haslem han pagado millones para vivir aquí con sus familias. ¿Acaso nuestro Alcalde está tratando de asustar a estos residentes, mientras nos vende a todos a una empresa privada de prisiones que se lucra millones con nuestros impuestos?”
A pesar de la creciente oposición contra el centro de detención, los funcionarios electos que participan directa o indirectamente en este proyecto siguen ignorando los pedidos de sus electores para que lo detengan. El Alcalde de Southwest Ranches, Jeff Nelson, continúa negociando con la CCA y con ICE. La congresista Debbie Wasserman Schultz y el Senador Bill Nelson se niegan a retirar su carta de apoyo.
Como si eso no fuera suficiente, la semana pasada, el Alcalde y los Comisionados de Pembroke Pines aprobaron un polémico acuerdo para proveer agua y alcantarillado a las instalaciones de CCA, después de insertar el tema en la agenda de su reunión pública en el último minuto, dando muy poco tiempo para avisar al público.
Miami Heat’s star, Udonis Haslem, “extremely upset” about Immigration Prison in South Florida
Udonis Haslem, Opposes Immigration Prison in South Florida
Last week, Miami native basketball star and a forward for the Miami Heat, sent a letter to the Town Council of Southwest Ranches expressing his opposition to their plans of building a massive immigration detention center in the area. This immigration prison will be one of the largest in the country, with capacity for at least 1,500 beds, and it is one of six new immigration detention centers in the government’s plan to expand the capacity for immigrant detention.
“I am extremely upset that you are under talks with CCA Corporation and the Department of Homeland Security…” writes Haslem, who has been living in Southwest Ranches with his family since 2007. “I do not support this in anyway and hope that this project does not happen.”
The letter was sent via e-mail to Residents Against ICE Southwest Ranches Detention Center last Thursday in the afternoon, and was hand-delivered by Haslem’s Aunt to the Town Council later that evening when the residents were gathered in hundreds to protest the prison.
“Haslem’s letter shows the magnitude of the opposition to this prison. Mayor Jeff Nelson, Town Council and Town Attorney Keith Poliakoff have tried to ignore us, marginalize us or even say we are not that many. Are they going to say the same to a public figure like Haslem?” asks Bill Di Scipio, a resident from Southwest Ranches. “Many residents like Haslem have paid millions to live here with their families. Is our Mayor trying to scare those residents away while selling all of us to a private prison company that profits millions from our taxes?”
Despite the growing opposition against the detention center, the elected officials involved directly or indirectly with this project keep ignoring their constituents’ requests to stop it. SWR Mayor, Jeff Nelson, continues negotiating with CCA and ICE. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Senator Bill Nelson have failed to withdraw their letter of support.
As if that weren’t enough, last week, Pembroke Pines Mayor and Commissioner approved a controversial agreement to provide water and sewer to the CCA facility after inserting the item to the agenda at the very last minute giving very little time for public notice.
Video: November 5th Meeting with ICE and CCA
The video above chronicles the events outside the meeting with ICE and CCA on Nov 5th at the Southwest Regional Library. This is a testimony to the strong opposition of more than 400 concerned residents to this immigration prison. However, ICE hasn’t done a public full environmental review that would analyze how the area and residents will be affected. Furthermore, SWR officials insist in saying this prison has residents’ support, when, as the video shows, they clearly do not. Feel free to subscribe to this blog or check out the CCA Go Away Facebook page for breaking news and other developments surrounding this campaign.
Upscale Fla. town in fight over immigrant prison
The CCA Go Away campaign was recently featured in an Associated Press article:
SOUTHWEST RANCHES, Fla. (AP) — In one of South Florida’s upscale, rural enclaves, where peacocks roam and horse trails are as common as sidewalks, town leaders decided to bring in much of their money from an unusual business: a prison.
Only the leaders of Southwest Ranches kept their plans quiet from residents for almost a decade, and the project has now ballooned into what would be among the federal government’s largest immigrant detention centers. The town would have to pay $150,000 each year to keep the prison, but officials say the town would turn a profit by getting 4 percent of what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pays the company operating the prison to hold inmates there.
Many residents finally caught wind of the idea this year, when the immigration agency announced a tentative deal, and they’re angry. They’ve held protests at public meetings, contemplated whether to recall the mayor before his March election and whether to amend the town charter to make it easier to fire the city attorney pushing the deal.
The objection over the prison has created an odd set of allies among the town’s affluent residents, many of whom are wary of illegal immigrants, and longtime activists who fight for immigrants, legal or not.
