Bank of America joined JP Morgan and Wells Fargo by deciding not to do any business with private companies that help fund detention centers.
From USA Today:
“The private sector is attempting to respond to public policy and government needs and demands in the absence of long standing and widely recognized reforms needed in criminal justice and immigration policies,” the statement read. “Lacking further legal and policy clarity, and in recognition of the concerns of our employees and stakeholders in the communities we serve, it is our intention to exit these relationships.”Bank of America was a chief financier of Caliburn, which runs a facility called Homestead that houses unaccompanied migrant children, The Miami Herald reported last month. Caliburn, which operates under a U.S. government contract, received a $380 million loan and a $75 million credit line from Bank of America, the Herald reported, citing documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The decision has made Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn think about switching banks.
Earlier this week, Wayfair employees protested after learning products from the website went to detention centers. Not just any products, but beds and mattresses specifically for children.
Wayfair’s co-founder and chief technology officer Steve Conine had a hard time defending the company’s choice to ship products detention centers. From Forbes:
I mean, we’re not a political entity. We’re not trying to take a political side in this.” When asked whether their team that handles large corporate and government orders had a code of ethics, Conine responded, “We should think about a code of ethics. And I think that’s something as a company that we should have a conversation around, we should put together. We should put some thought into that.”
Do Wayfair employees not want children to have beds and mattresses? Do they realize, or care that charity organizations placed those orders?
And now Bank of America won’t finance companies that help run these centers, denying them money to keep working to make the facilities better. Fixing and expanding these centers will not happen overnight. They are meant to house people for maybe a few hours, not days and days.
Does anyone else see how backward this is? Where is common sense?
Depriving companies of the ability to make detention centers better for the people they’re temporarily housing boggles my mind.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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