Activists petition bank to stop financing jails

PROVIDENCE — The Jewish activist group known for nationwide protests outside immigration detention facilities presented a petition at Citizens Bank headquarters demanding that the bank stop doing business with private prison entities.

"More than 80 organizations, which represent millions of members, are calling on your company to commit to stop all financing to private prison and immigrant-detention companies, by not renewing or providing new loans to private prison and immigrant detention companies," said the letter, delivered by a dozen or so representatives of the Families Belong Together Corporate Accountability Committee and Never Again Action. "We ask you to inform us about the actions your company intends to take on these issues."

The petition included 70,000 signatures endorsing the stances of both Never Again Action and Families Belong Together, a nationwide coalition of 250 organizations advocating against family separations in U.S. immigration law enforcement.

Though Never Again Action is known locally for its protests regarding the holding of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, the group acknowledged that Citizens Bank holds no financial interests in that facility.

Citizens — owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group — has a $96-million line of credit and $24 million in short term loans extended to CoreCivic, a for-profit company operating detention centers under government contracts across the United States, according to a report issued in April by The Center for Popular Democracy, Public Accountability Initiative and In The Public Interest.

The report cited CoreCivic's 2018 filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission as the source of the information.

Citizens Bank declined to comment on who its clients were or on the protest itself but did say the following in response to a Journal inquiry:

"We do maintain a commitment to lending to companies that conduct their business in a socially responsible manner," Citizens spokesman Peter Lucht said. "If that is not the case we are prepared to exit those relationships.”

— kandrade@providencejournal.com

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