WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th August, 2018) The Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund (CTPF) board of Trustees in a press release said investment managers will liquidate public market holdings in private prison companies citing issues such as profiting off the perpetuation of immigrant family separations.
"The Trustees directed staff to instruct investment managers to prudently liquidate public market holdings in private prison companies, engaging in either incarceration or in immigrant detention as soon as reasonably practical and in accordance with the managers' fiduciary duties," the release said on Friday.
Private prisons, the release added, disproportionately incarcerate people of color, perpetuate the separation of immigrant families and lack fiscal and operational transparency.
In 2017, more than 20,000 immigrants were being held in for-profit detention centers according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement data.
Last year, two private prison companies alone won a combined $1 billion worth of ICE-related business after making around $4 million in political donations during the previous election cycle, the Correction Accountability Project (CAP) advocacy group said in a report.
CAP Director Bianca Tylek told Sputnik in July that privatizing immigration detention centers has led to the exploitation of migrant labor and allows corporate interests to drive US immigration policy.
The Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF) administers benefits totaling nearly $1.4 billion annually.
