Northwest Bronx residents protest Citizens Bank ties to ICE detention companies

Northwest Bronx residents are urging Citizens Bank to cut financial ties with for-profit private prison companies operating dozens of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities.

Since January, residents and members of Northwest Bronx Indivisible have fervently gathered outside the bank’s West 235th Street branch, holding handwritten signs, distributing flyers and urging customers to reconsider where they keep their money.

The protests are part of the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition, a national campaign accusing Citizens Financial Group of helping sustain the private immigration detention industry through loans provided to The GEO Group and CoreCivic, two of the nation’s largest private correctional firms.

For many involved in the campaign, like longtime Riverdale resident and Northwest Bronx Indivisible member Lois Harr, the issue became deeply personal after the detention of then 20-year-old Dylan Lopez Contreras in 2024, who was arrested after appearing for a mandatory immigration hearing at 26 Federal Plaza.

Contreras, a student at Marble Hill’s ELLIS Preparatory Academy, spent roughly 10 months detained at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania before his release in March of this year.

“We knew that Dylan was in Moshannon, and that Moshannon was run by The GEO Group,” Harr said of what sparked her involvement in the campaign. “Then somehow one of us found out that Citizens Bank was still funding GEO and CoreCivic.”

Reports published by Citizens Financial Group indicate the bank provided more than $1 billion in credit to The GEO Group in 2024 and served as a lender on a $1 billion credit facility for CoreCivic. On CoreCivic and The GEO Group’s May 6 earnings call, both companies reported rising revenues last year tied to increased immigration detention.

The GEO Group, which operates 19 ICE detention facilities, reported $2.6 billion in revenue and said it was working to reactivate facilities previously phased out under the Biden administration to meet growing ICE detention demands.

CoreCivic, which operates at least 10 ICE detention facilities, reported $2.2 billion in revenue and said the number of immigrants detained in its facilities increased nearly 60 percent in 2025.

The GEO Group did not respond to requests for comment.

CoreCivic defended both its role in the immigration detention system and its relationships with financial institutions. While declining to discuss specific financial arrangements beyond public disclosures, Ryan Gustin, senior director of public affairs for CoreCivic, said it plays “a limited but important role in America’s immigration system.”

“CoreCivic does not enforce immigration laws, arrest anyone who may be in violation of immigration laws, or have any say whatsoever in an individual’s deportation or release. CoreCivic also does not know the circumstances of individuals when they are placed in our facilities,” Gustin said in a statement to The Press.

The company also said it is not informed about the circumstances of detainees placed in its facilities and that its responsibility is “to care for each person respectfully and humanely while they receive the legal due process that they are entitled to.”

On May 5, Harr sent a letter to Richard Stein, Citizens Bank’s executive vice president and senior risk advisor, urging the bank to “immediately end its financial relationships with CoreCivic and The GEO Group” and publicly commit to ending their financing of private prison or detention companies.

In the letter, Harr criticized comments made by Citizens CEO Bruce Van Saun during the company’s April shareholder meeting, where he suggested some reports of abuses in detention facilities “might be exaggerated.”

The letter also cited years of federal inspections, congressional investigations and oversight findings documenting alleged medical neglect, unsanitary conditions and inadequate mental health care in facilities operated by The GEO Group and CoreCivic.

In response to the protests, Citizens defended its broader corporate record and declined to discuss specific clients.

“Citizens respects the right to peaceful expression and operates through close client relationships supported by rigorous due diligence, regulatory compliance, and responsible risk management,” Rory Sheehan, head of enterprise communications, said in a statement to The Press.

The bank said it was unfair to view Citizens “under a single issue lens,” pointing to what it described as significant community investment efforts, including $2 billion in equity and loan commitments in 2025 to finance the construction or revitalization of more than 8,000 affordable housing units.

In Riverdale, the chorus of calls on Citizens has broadened since the first demonstration in the winter, which consisted of only a small group of protesters standing outside the branch in freezing temperatures. Since then, turnout has steadily grown, with Harr estimating more than 40 people attended the most recent protest.

The gatherings are intentionally structured as peaceful community actions rather than confrontational demonstrations. The De-ICE campaign’s guidelines for protesters state to avoid blocking entrances or harassing customers, and instead focus on conversations with residents passing by.

That neighborhood-level organizing reflects the structure of the broader coalition itself. Peyton Flemming, a spokesperson for the De-Ice Citizens Bank coalition, said the campaign began only months ago among activists in Massachusetts and Connecticut, following a successful effort to pressure Avelo Airlines to stop operating deportation flights for ICE.

The coalition’s first coordinated day of action in January included several dozen protests across multiple states, including one led by Harr in Riverdale. By March, organizers said that number had more than doubled, with demonstrations spanning 12 states and Washington, D.C.

Among those attending the Riverdale demonstrations was Cathy Mulvaney, an NWBI member and longtime Citizens Bank customer, who said learning about the bank’s financing prompted her to reconsider where she keeps her money.

“I don’t want my money going toward that,” Mulvaney said. “It starts with one person. We can all do something.”

Mulvaney said many who pass by the protests initially know little about the issue, but often stop to ask questions or take informational flyers distributed by demonstrators.

For Harr, the importance of the protests lies partly in their persistence.

“You never know exactly which straw is the one that breaks the camel’s back,” she said. “Therefore all the straws are really important.”