As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues operations across the United States, faith-based investors including Mercy Investment Services have been vocal advocates for immigrants’ rights with the companies playing a growing role in their detention.
Mercy Investment Services’ longtime engagements with private prison companies including GEO Group (GEO) have focused on human rights policies ensuring fair and just treatment for incarcerated people. With the increased immigration detention, GEO now owns and assists in the operation of over 20 detention centers, while its wholly owned subsidiary, GEO Transport, is ICE’s largest provider of transportation services and a provider of security on ICE deportation flights. During the most recent shareholder advocacy season, Mercy both filed a shareholder proposal seeking greater accountability for the human rights impacts of GEO’s operations and requested dialogue with GEO’s board to discuss the company’s potential violations of international human rights law by assisting with ICE deportations.
Recently, Institute Justice Team (IJT) member Jean Stokan participated in a three-day convening focused on the GEO-owned Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey. Jean and fellow participants listened to testimonies and held a vigil outside Delaney Hall to support those detained at the facility in deplorable, inhumane conditions resulting in death and sickness.
“There was a national call for the faith community to come and stand in solidarity with detained immigrants and their families,” Jean explained. “The food and health conditions in Delaney Hall have been horrific, resulting in death and sickness, and detainees themselves went on an extended hunger strike to draw attention to these conditions.
“For the Sisters of Mercy, it was important to join this wave of solidarity and bear public witness on behalf of immigrant communities,” She continued. “The protest in July addressed not only mass detention and deportation, but also mass incarceration, since Essex County Jail is adjacent to Delaney Hall, and imprisons predominantly people of color.”
The IJT addresses the Critical Concerns through legislative advocacy and public witness, which complements Mercy Investment Services’ approach and ensures the Sisters of Mercy address systemic change from multiple angles.
“The IJT has long worked to elevate how U.S. foreign policies have contributed to the root causes of immigration. Our team, and Mercy advocates across the country, also have been carrying out strong Congressional engagement over this last period to stop federal funding for ICE given the cruelty and violent attacks against immigrants,” Jean says. “Because those funds are used for private contractors like GEO Group to run immigrant detention centers, we plan to join efforts promoting faith vigils at local detention facilities across the country. It is such a critical time for Mercy and all people of faith to draw more attention to what is happening in this warehousing of human beings and the attacks on their dignity.”