Victory! United Methodist Church Divests from Private Prisons
The United Methodist Church has divested from Corrections Corporation of America and the Geo Group!
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Prison Industry Divestment Campaign
National Day of Action
Join the Fight Today
Enlace, in partnership with community groups and unions across the US, is calling on all public and private institutions to divest their holdings in Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, America’s largest private prison corporations which have profited from billions in taxpayer money. Watch the Campaign Video.
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Peer Trainer Program Grows
The Enlace Institute’s Peer Trainer Program, is showing a 41% increase in enrolled participants in its second two-year training series.
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2011- 2012 Training Dates
Enlace Institute Peer Training Series Schedule
Our trainings are designed for people working in organizations striving for labor and social justice.
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Enlace in the Fight to Decriminalize Immigrants
On Friday, July 30, 2010 the Republican Governors Association sent out a nationwide solicitation written by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer requesting contributions to fund an appeal of the partial injunction issued by a judge against SB1070.
Although some of the law’s worst provisions were stalled, the ruling was by no means a solid victory. Thousands gathered all over the country and around the world to protest the wave of anti-immigrant and people of color sentiment in the US that is creating racist laws and breeding a rise in terrorist white supremacist groups.
Brewer’s administration, in a welcome gesture to armed white supremacist vigilante groups aligned with notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio, recently implemented a law allowing concealed weapons to be carried in public.
Enlace has been on the front line of research into the corporate forces behind the organization of the nationwide racist anti-immigrant legislation effort begun by Arizona’s SB 1070. We have been assisting allies in efforts to target the worst culprits for public exposure. The July 29 action targeting a G4S/Wackenhut office in Los Angeles is an example of this aspect of the movement to decriminalize immigrants.
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group, both huge private prison firms, are principal moving forces in the behind-the-scenes organization of this anti-immigrant wave. Both companies, which rely almost exclusively on revenue from tax dollars at local, state and federal levels, began profiting from the incarceration of immigrants apprehended by ICE when the Bush Administration changed the charge for working without a proper social security number from a misdemeanor with a short jail sentence to a felony carrying a long prison sentence (2006). This change in federal law enforcement increased the market of potential immigrant inmates for CCA and GEO by more than 10 million people that the government would pay to have housed, transported, fed, etc. Soon after the Bush Administration implemented this change in law enforcement effecting immigrants, Wall Street advisors publically recommended buying stock in private prison companies like CCA and GEO. At the time, Vice President Dick Cheney was heavily invested in Vanguard, one of a handful of major shareholders in GEO.
CCA’s and GEO’s share of the immigrant incarceration business has grown substantially since 2006. Today, for example, anyone picked up by ICE in Los Angeles is sent to a CCA facility in San Diego while those picked up by ICE in Seattle or Portland, OR, are sent to a GEO facility in Tacoma.
Last November CCA’s top management in Tennessee contributed the largest block of out of state campaign contributions received by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who signed SB 1070 into law this spring. CCA, which already has several detention facilities in Arizona and is hoping to get another large prison to incarcerate immigrants in that state, expects to gain a huge increase in revenues when SB 1070 is implemented.
CCA and GEO are owned by major Wall Street institutions that profit from the immigrant incarceration business. These include Vanguard, Wells Fargo, Pershing Square and SCOPIA (hedge funds), Lazard, FMR (Fidelity), and Bank of America.
We are working to assist members and allies in exposing the corporate leadership of the nationwide racist anti-immigrant legislation effort begun by Arizona’s SB 1070, a law criminalizing immigrants and people of color.