MEDIA ADVISORY
Portlanders protest against Wells Fargo’s role in Immigrant Detentions
What: In concert with protesters in 16 major cities across the country, concerned Portlanders will converge on the SE 38th and Hawthorne branch of Wells Fargo Bank to demand that Wells Fargo abandon its role in the nation’s rapidly expanding for-profit immigrant detention system.
When: Saturday October 29, 2011 @ 10:00 a.m.
Where: Wells Fargo Bank, 3782 Hawthorne Blvd., Portland, OR
Why: 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). Through its mutual funds, Wells Fargo is a major investor in the GEO, the nation’s second largest private prison company, and a minor shareholder in CCA, the largest.
These 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 excessive abuse of detainees is rampant across the increasingly privatized federal immigrant detention system.
Wells Fargo, a recipient of billions of tax bail-out 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.
Immigrants arrested in the Portland area are sent for detention to the GEO-run Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington.
Please contact: Peter Cervantes-Gautschi; (503) 705-3343; pcg@enlaceintl.org
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Prison Industry Divestment Movement 