GEO Group, a for-profit prison company that runs prisons and detention centers across the country, issued a cease and desist letter to civil rights organization the Dream Defenders accusing the group of defamation ahead of their planned day of protest against the company on August 7th. GEO Group has been in the national spotlight in recent months due to their role in family separations at the border. Tuesday’s “Day of Action” is slated to be the Dream Defenders’ largest protest in a series of protests targeting the GEO Group and the politicians who take their campaign contributions. Demonstrations at GEO offices and facilities are planned in 15 cities, including Boca Raton (where GEO Group is headquartered), New York City, and several locations in Arizona and California. Dream Defenders’ response, which was sent this morning, can be found here.
“The GEO Group has been profiting from the imprisonment of people since before most of our members were born,” says Dream Defenders co-director Rachel Gilmer. GEO Group was founded in 1984. “They’ve been pushing for hard-on-crime laws, tougher immigration policy behind the scenes to fill up their prisons for decades and we’re pulling them out of the shadows. They don’t like that.”
In the last 20 years, GEO Group has given more than $8.7 million in campaign contributions to politicians. The letter comes a little over a month after the Dream Defenders were able to push the Florida Democratic Party to pass a binding resolution not to take money from private prisons, their PACs or lobbyists. In June, Florida’s four major Democratic gubernatorial candidates signed onto the Dream Defenders’ Freedom Pledge, which asks that candidates and elected officials stop taking money from private prisons.
“We’re making GEO’s money toxic, a political nightmare for politicians who take contributions from them,” says Chardonnay Singleton, Dream Defenders’ Field Director. “Politicians should be embarrassed about taking their money, and in Florida, they’re starting to be. Which I’m sure is part of the reason we got that letter in the first place. But tomorrow, we press on.”
The cease and desist letter, sent on behalf of GEO Group by law firm Holland and Knight, accuses the group of “blatantly false accusations” and contested the organization’s use of “separating families,” “cages,” and other terms widely used by journalists in recent months.
Last year, GEO reportedly made a record-breaking $2.26 billion in revenue. Their earnings have been increasing since the election of Trump, to whom they donated $250,000 in 2016. GEO Group is Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s largest contractor and are slated to profit the most from recent border policy.
The activists say they will continue to fight against the private prison company and confront politicians and candidates that have taken money from the GEO Group. For more about the National Day of Action, visit geocages.com.
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