CalSTRS: Stop Investing in Migrant Abuse Companies

Nearly four weeks after the court-ordered deadline to reunite all families ripped apart at the border under the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy, 539 children remain separated from their families. At least four companies in CalSTRS’ portfolio – CoreCivic, GEO Group, General Dynamics, and United Rentals – are providing the very resources the administration depends on to carry out these crimes against humanity.

Tell CalSTRS: Stop investing in companies that are profiting off of human suffering.

Thanks to the fierce opposition from CalSTRS members like yourself and protests at CalSTRS’ board meeting in July, CalSTRS is making a rare move and reviewing its investments in for-profit prison companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group. While this is a step in the right direction, CalSTRS is still resisting stakeholders’ urgent demands for divestment from CoreCivic and GEO Group, and good faith engagement with child-detention enablers General Dynamics and United Rentals. With the media starting to take notice and other states and pension funds looking to CalSTRS for direction, it’s all the more crucial for CalSTRS members to send a clear message to the pension fund: complicity is not an option.

With more than $144 million of shares in CoreCivic, GEO Group, General Dynamics, and United Rentals, CalSTRS is investing in companies that are profiting off of a policies designed to inflict grave harm and lasting trauma on children and families fleeing horrific violence and persecution. The separation, detention, and deportation of refugees and asylum seekers – to countries where they face serious threats to their life and freedom – violates fundamental human rights enshrined in international law. CalSTRS is widely recognized as a leader in socially responsible investing; it’s time they lived up to that reputation.

Demand that CalSTRS immediately divest from GEO Group and CoreCivic, and pressure General Dynamics and United Rentals to urgently end their material support for the detention of migrant children.