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De-Ice Citizens Bank

  • 5 days ago
  • 5 min read

UPDATE:

Citizens Bank ends relationship with ICE prison companies after months of protest


Citizens Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in New England, announced it will be ending its financial relationship with prison companies connected with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

This decision comes after months of public outcry and hundreds of millions being divested from Citizens’ due to its relationship with Core Civic and The GEO Group — two companies that invest and operate in prisons used to detain ICE arrestees. Learn more from GBH Boston.


What's Next ? Check out this Live Document that shares on-going campaigns, some by folks in this org and others that are aligned (ie, targeting CoreCivic and GEO and other ICE machinery disruption). 

To the Members of the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition and GBIO  July 23, 2026

Congratulations! We did it.

As we have been saying for months: a bank that purports to care about communities has no business underwriting neglect, abuse, and mistreatment. Last week, Citizens Bank announced it is ending its credit facilities with CoreCivic and The GEO Group, the two largest for-profit prison companies, operating dozens of ICE detention centers across the country. Read More from the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition and Greater Boston Interfaith Organization


Letter to Bruce Van Saun, Citizens Bank CEO July 23, 2026:

Mr. Van Saun:

The De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition represents over 175 groups in 16 states. The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) is made up of more than 53 churches, synagogues and mosques and their members. Many individuals and organizations among us are Citizens Bank customers and shareholders, and are patrons of organizations the bank supports through its philanthropy.

As we have said for months, a bank that claims to care for communities has no business financing companies with documented histories of neglect, abuse and mistreatment at their facilities. We have stood in unified opposition to Citizens' lending relationships with CoreCivic and The GEO Group (GEO), private prison companies operating dozens of detention centers for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Doing good in one arena does not offset harm caused in another.


We welcome the news that Citizens is exiting credit facilities with CoreCivic and GEO.


While the action is a step in the right direction, your statement leaves important questions unanswered. We are asking Citizens to address the following questions publicly:

  1. Timeline. When will existing credit facilities with CoreCivic and GEO be fully wound down?

  2. Other financing channels. Does this exit extend to underwriting, bond issuances, or other capital markets support Citizens may provide to these companies, beyond direct lending?

  3. Future credit. Will Citizens commit to no new loans, credit facilities, or renewals with these two companies, or with other private prison operators, going forward?


Inquiries from municipalities, investors, faith groups and other bank customers about moving deposits away from Citizens have continued since your announcement.

We will be watching for answers to these questions and monitoring the underlying facts in public filings and disclosures.


Sincerely,

The De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition and Greater Boston Interfaith Organization



Join Indivisible SouthCoast New England as we call attention to and fight against this injustice. Subscribe for Updates or Add Your Name to Our Action Team.



Why We're Taking Action

Citizens Bank is bankrolling the country's two largest prison companies that are earning record profits operating dozens of ICE detention facilities.


While most major banks have cut ties with CoreCivic and The GEO Group, Citizens Bank is deepening its financial support for these companies, which are already holding more than half of the people currently in ICE detention centers across the country.


The bank's capital is supporting a deplorable ICE agenda that aims to fill detention centers with more than 100,000 people by next year.


Even as it publicly touts its commitment to "strengthening our communities," Citizens Bank has played a key role in helping The GEO Group and CoreCivic access more than $2.5 billion in financing, some of it approved earlier this year. This comes as the companies face a mountain of allegations, including forced labor and wrongful deaths due to understaffing and medical neglect at their facilities.


We won't quietly stand by as Citizens continues to finance the private prison & ICE detention companies that are harming our communities. The 2019 exodus of banks from the industry in response to activism should be a reminder to us that our voices matter. Now it's time to use them.


Join us at our next New Bedford Protest:



Suggested Signs for This Action

  • De-ICE Citizens Bank

  • Cages Aren't Communities

  • Citizens Bank - Stop Financing ICE Prisons

  • Citizens Bank + ICE = Human Rights Abuse

  • ICE Prisons Don't Strengthen Our Communities

  • Citizens Bank - Cut Ties With ICE Prisons


Community & Safety Guidelines


Solidarity with Workers

We want to be in solidarity with workers including bank branch employees. Treat everyone with respect and do not harass or film employees.


Nonviolent Action

A core principle behind all Coalition events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values. We expect hosts to ensure all participants in your event uphold this commitment.


We recommend all participants review a safety and security resource before your event, such as indivisi.org/safety.


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Silencing Children's Voices

Thousands of children have been held in ICE facilities, including hundreds for more than the court-mandated 20-day limit.


“We forgot what it feels like to be free."


ICE has detained more than 6,200 children in CoreCivic and GEO Group ICE facilities since 2025, many of them for longer than the 20-day limit prescribed by courts — with some children as young as five held for more than nine months. 


In legal filings last year, parents said their children were so desperate for toys that they resorted to playing with rocks at CoreCivic's Dilley, Texas facility. “Children were under so much psychological stress that parents said they were hitting their own faces or wetting themselves despite being potty-trained,” the Marshall Project reported. 


After the Texas Tribune and ProPublica published drawings from children detained at the Dilley facility earlier this year, parents there reported a clampdown: CoreCivic guards searched rooms and removed the children's art supplies.


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Miscarrying in ICE Detention


She was miscarrying in the middle of the night.

Although Lucia   requested immediate medical attention, she was not taken to see medical staff until the middle of the next day.

CoreCivic employees left her bleeding alone for hours.

After hours of waiting alone, Lucia was transported to an emergency room

in shackles — only after losing enough blood to need a transfusion.



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The need to protect the vote: More crucial each day!

  • Jul 18
  • 4 min read

Indivisible SouthCoast NE is planning for a strong push to turn out the vote for the Midterms.


It’s important that we spread the information and urgency we have to everyone we know and ask them to do the same. Personal connections make a big difference in getting people out to vote and engaged.


According to Race to the White House; we need 17 seats in the Senate; Hold 13 Dems and Flip 4 of the Rep. We have a 50.5% chance to succeed as of last poll

 Focus to Flip seats is on AK w/ Mary Peltola; NC w/ Roy Cooper; ME ?;OH w/ Sherrod Brown; TX; Talarico; IA w/ Turik.

Focus on Defending Seats; MI which is an open seat and Indivisible has endorsed Al Sayed. Their primary is 8/4.  GA; Ossoff; NH open seat w/ hope for Chris Pappas, their primary is 9/8. 

Gain 4 seats in the House of Representatives. Out of 435 seats we need 218 to have a majority. With the recent redistricting, chances of gaining the majority has gone down to 72 % from 81 % earlier. Currently, Race to the White House projects 228 Democratic seats to 206 Republican seats. There are too many races to name here but check the website for great details and each race and where we have the most chance to flip.

The bigger we win, the harder it will be for the regime to deny the results. Therefore the first step in protecting the elections is to drive HUGE voter turnout amongst Democratic leaning voters.


HERE'S HOW

🔥 Prepare yourself and everyone you know to vote.🔥

Vote.org has easy to use tools to

  • 1) check voter registration status,

  • 2) register

  • 3) learn every state’s rules on early voting, mail voting, etc.

  • 4) find polling places, and much more. 

Check the Official  Massachusetts Elections and Voting Pages


Check the Official RI Voter Information Pages



  • Get Out The Vote (GOTV) by writing postcards.  Our “Indivisible Southcoast “Flippers” group meets once a month for postcarding together and we also give out postcards for folks who want to organize their own group friends and spread the work. We had sent postcards to WI, OH, NC, ME, NH and more.

  • Phonebank with us as well. We are just getting this off the ground.

  • Local Canvassing for area candidates. Many people are not aware that the primaries are Sept 1st and the candidates need your help. Contact your local Dems or the campaigns themselves to get involved.  It’s fun to meet your neighbors and you are giving them valuable information about early voting, up and coming candidates. 

  •  Create meaningful conversations with voters to Get Out The Vote (GOTV). Swing Left’s Ground Truth connects volunteers with voters from all backgrounds either in person or by phone from anywhere.  These are open ended conversations designed to build relationships and trust. 

    • Find a canvass here and/or

    • Sign up for a phonebank here. 

  • Donate to Swing Left’s Balance of Power Fund:  This fund supports Democrats in the elections that will determine the national balance of power—all with a single donation.  A mix of must-win U.S. House, Senate, and gubernatorial races across the country, this is a high impact donation!  Read more about Swing Left’s strategy here.  

  • Donate to Black Voters Matter Fund:  To build Black political power by strengthening local organizations, expanding civic engagement, building cross-community coalitions, and advancing policies that protect and empower Black communities.

  • Donate to Movement Voter Project:  To fund local organizing in every swingable Senate, House, and downballot race — to build the biggest Blue Wave possible.

  • Spread the word about and donate to Voteriders.org, a free resource to help voters get to the polls.


Take Direct Actions to Protect Elections:


Be a poll worker and encourage your family and friends to do so as well.  Learn more at Powerthepolls.org. 

Volunteer with VoProPros.com.  These are the “professionals” who have been doing ballot curing, voter protection, research to root out election tampering and getting out the vote. 

You can help them as well w/ Phonebanking . This is the friendliest phonebanking you’ll ever do.  You’ll notify people who have been dropped from voter rolls, help them register, contact them if their ballot has been rejected and help them “cure” their ballot, among many other things to help people access their right to vote. Learn more about the two ways to get involved here. You can be part of a “rapid response “ group and get an email when something urgent is needed or you can volunteer 3-5 hrs per week on a regular basis. 

Sign up with Indivisible’s Hands Off Our Vote which is launching at the end of July.   You’ll be notified of key voting deadlines in your state, get updates on any threats to your voting rights and learn how to counter them, and play an important role in rapid response moments whenever and wherever the regime tries to pull dirty tricks.(see *below)


Be prepared to mobilize peacefully if necessary. In the words of the folks from Protect Democracy, “There may be moments in the coming year when officials or institutions face intense pressure to violate the law or subvert election results. If so, peaceful, visible public action may be essential. When people come together in sufficient numbers to defend democracy and uphold the law, it works.”


Donate to the ACLU:  To fund strategic litigation, advocacy, and organizing needed to take on voter suppression and gerrymandering and promote access to the ballot.  Donate here. 


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What is Do Something Indivisible SouthCoast NE?

We are volunteers from the SouthCoast of New England who are building our pro-democracy movement, advancing a progressive agenda, providing mutual aid, and demonstrating resistance to authoritarianism.


As a local chapter of Indivisible, we are nonviolent and nonpartisan. We value democracy and justice, community and collaboration, diversity, inclusion and belonging, and courage.

We support the work of other nonviolent democracy groups and welcome everyone to our people-led movement.

We are stronger together.

Unity is power.




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(*)If you live in or have friends or family in the “ Battleground States;   Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas, join or encourage your friends and family to join Indivisible’s Election Protection Corps. This is a grassroots network of volunteers dedicated to protecting the right to vote before, during, and after the 2026 election in the states where the threat of sabotage is highest.



Two Minutes

  • Jun 28
  • 3 min read


Imagine a normal, unassuming day.


You are driving home, and you pull up to a traffic light.


The light shifts from red to green.


It takes less than a minute. But in that exact span of time, two lives have just been fundamentally altered.


For communities across the country, the reality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations isn’t just a political talking point—it is a ticking clock. Every single minute, two people are arrested by ICE. One is taken, and then another. Minute after minute, hour after hour, the system moves continuously, leaving an immediate and devastating trail of uncertainty behind.

The Empty Chair and the Closed Door

When we talk about deportation and detention statistics, it is easy to lose sight of the human element. But the reality is measured in the quiet spaces left behind in a home:

  • An empty chair at the dinner table where a father used to sit.

  • A paycheck that never comes home, suddenly plunging a family into financial panic.

  • A mother staring blankly at her phone, praying for a text or a call that explains where her partner was taken.

The most heartbreaking image is one that repeats itself in neighborhoods across the nation: a young child standing at a closed door. She is waiting for a knock, waiting for the door to open, waiting for a parent who may not return to hold her.

A System of Separation

These individuals are not vanishing into the dark or being taken into the woods. They are being funneled directly into a complex, rigid detention and deportation system. It is a machine designed to enforce laws, but its byproduct is the systematic dismantling of the lives people have spent decades building.

When a person is taken, the consequences ripple outward. It isn't just one individual affected; entire ecosystems fracture:

  • Families lose their emotional and financial anchors.

  • Workplaces lose dedicated employees overnight.

  • Communities lose neighbors who volunteered, chatted over fences, and contributed to the local culture.

  • Children lose their daily routines, replaced instead by a heavy, suffocating layer of trauma and fear.

Living in the Shadows of Uncertainty

Living with the constant threat of enforcement means living in a state of perpetual anxiety. It means wondering if a routine drive to work or a run to the grocery store will be the moment everything changes. For the children left behind, the psychological weight is profound.


Somewhere right now, a child is still waiting at a door. 


The clock keeps ticking, the traffic lights keep changing, and every sixty seconds, two more families are forced to face an uncertain future.


Turning Fear into Action: Join Indivisible SouthCoast NE


Friends, we do not have to watch the clock tick in isolation or process this grief alone. Right here in our community, we have the power to resist this machinery of separation and stand up for our neighbors. Indivisible Southcoast New England is a local network of neighbors dedicated to pushing back, defending immigrant communities, and resisting the policies of this regime. By joining us, you turn your anxiety into organized advocacy—whether through local rapid-response support, legislative pressure, or community education. Somewhere, a child is waiting at a door; let’s make sure they know an entire community is standing on the porch with them. 

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Local immigrant resources include Luce Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, a coalition of immigrant-led, grassroots organizations who build people power for everyone across Massachusetts. 


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