A group of protesters gathered around the Citizens Bank building in Coolidge Corner in order to close their bank accounts, inform the public and express dissent on Saturday, March 7 . The protest was about the bank’s loans and services to CoreCivic and GEO Group, for-profit prison companies that fund U.S Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
This protest was part of a larger protest against Citizens Bank. Activists said that CoreCivic and GEO Group used the bank’s funds to build detention centers that treated detainees in an inhumane manner. They also felt that ICE’s methods were excessively violent, mentioning the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Phil Sains, a Brookline resident, said he is worried about the people ICE has detained and said he wants immigration enforcement to be carried out lawfully. According to Sains, three of four of his grandparents escaped to the United States from Nazi persecution.
“We want to let the public know that we are standing with the immigrants,” Sains said. “We believe what ICE is doing is wrong, and we’re going to continue to show up here until these policies are changed.”
Another protestor, Kea van de Ziel, said she has a long history of protesting against unjust treatment. She said her main concerns were the fact that ICE is sending people to third-world countries and that many of the enforcement detainees have no criminal record.
“I think that we need comprehensive immigration laws. We don’t have them. They were working on it before Trump was elected, and he told Republicans not pursue it because he wanted it as an issue. There’s no excuse for not having a policy on immigration here,” Ziel said.
Boston University professor Edward Loechler said he wants to see many changes within ICE and the country in general. He said the U.S. has overspent money on the military instead of allocating these funds to healthcare and housing. According to Loechler, immigration reform should include more immigration lawyers who can process asylum cases, legal pathways for migrants and temporary visas for seasonal farmers from other countries.
“The shooting deaths in Minneapolis, all of the injuries, excessive force, like they’re throwing people down on the ground for no good reason and shooting rubber bullets,” said Loechler. “They’re targeting people who are not the worst of the worst, and they’re picking people randomly because they’re racially profiling.”
He talked about upcoming movements, about bringing people to protest against funding detention centers and ICE because of their actions, mentioning different cases of deaths within ICE’s detention centers.
“It’s because of all of us, all of you doing this, and all of the other actions that I know many of you are involved in, that is going to put a stop to this,” said Loechler. “So we all have to stick together. We all have to do as much as we can.”
