Students at the University of California, Berkeley are furious after finding out that their on-campus bank may have financial holdings in prisons associated with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE.
According to an editorial in The Daily Californian, students are calling on Berkeley to completely sever all ties with “Bank of the West,” the official on-campus bank whose parent company is BNP Paribas, the world’s 8th largest bank with holdings in 75 countries.
While BNP Paribas has holdings in numerous companies spread all around the world, students from Berkeley were shocked and horrified to learn that the bank owns more than $1 million in shares in CoreCivic Inc., as well as GEO Group Inc. Both companies are contracted to operate a number of correctional facilities within the United States, and more than 20 of which are contracted by ICE.
The school’s ties to BNP Paribas were discovered by senior Camila Elizabet Aguirre-Aguilar, who found the link while spending time perusing a list of companies with holdings in the GEO Group.
“I thought it’d be really ironic if the school’s bank had any investments,” said Aguirre-Aguilar. “I saw BNP Paribas, and I thought that looked familiar … It was just a thought that it would be ironic in a really tragic way, and then that turned out to be how it is.”
Upon discovery of the school’s apparent “relationship” with private prisons and ICE, the Daily Californian editorial board immediately called for the school to cease doing business with Bank of the West, despite admitting that that bank contributes a lot of money to those in need on campus, and splitting away from them would “undoubtedly hurt students.”
“From the UC Berkeley Food Pantry to scholarships to financial literacy programs, the financial support of Bank of the West has led to important campus resources that, if terminated, would undoubtedly hurt students,” the editors lamented.
Their solution, however, is quite simple: rich donors must step in and provide the money that a rich banking corporation had previously been providing.
“It’s time to call on donors and sponsors to fill the hole Bank of the West would leave,” declared the editors.
“Ultimately, money comes and goes, but an association with moral corruption is something that will leave a stain on this campus for decades.”
