New York state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli junked the state public pension fund’s remaining private prison assets Thursday in response to current federal immigration enforcement practices.
As of last month, the New York State Common Retirement Fund had $3.8 million in CoreCivic holdings and $5.8 million in GEO Group — drops in its $207 billion bucket. This move eliminates its private prison holdings, the comptroller’s office said.
“The current immigration situation is creating even more risks in their business model, which has consequences for their long value,” spokeswoman Jennifer Freeman wrote in a statement.
A 40-year-old man in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at the CoreCivic-operated Stewart Detention Center in Georgia was found unresponsive in his cell Tuesday, an apparent suicide. CoreCivic also operates the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey, where many immigrants apprehended in New York are held.
The state stopped buying new CoreCivic stock in 1999 and added GEO Group to its restricted list in 2016. But until this week, it still had some holdings in its portfolio.
Javier Valdés, co-director of immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New York, hailed the move as “a major victory for our community.”
The group, in a data analysis conducted along with the Center for Popular Democracy, estimates that the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance border policy could increase the number of immigrants in private detention by as much as 580 percent in two years.