We are demanding that Vanguard divest its fund portfolio from private prisons, namely GEO Group and CoreCivic. As one of the nation’s largest retirement plan providers, it plays an outsized role and sets standards in the industry. 

Vanguard has the unique distinction of being one of the nation’s largest retirement plan providers and one of the largest investors in the private prisons that prop up and profit from immigration detention. It is the second-largest institutional shareholder in both GEO Group and CoreCivic, the nation’s two largest private prison corporations. Only BlackRock, which is not a commercial retirement plan provider, has a larger stake in these corporations through its exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which we are also encouraging pledges to remove from their fund offering. But the bottom line is that no other commercial retirement plan provider has a stake in private prisons that comes close to Vanguard, and targeting Vanguard would send a message rippling across the financial industry — to other retirement plan providers and fund managers — that expectations have changed.

Vanguard is disproportionaly invested in private prisons as compared to similarly situated retirement plan providers. They are invested at multiples higher than other commercial retirement plan providers, like Fidelity Investments or Charles Schwab. In fact, Fidelity Investments, presumed to be the nation’s largest retirement plan provider, is not a top 20 investor for either corporation, illustrating plainly that such investments are not simply inevitable due to market design. 

If Vanguard were to divest, it would mean a sell off of over 10% of both GEO Group’s and CoreCivic’s stock. This sell off would dramatically impact their market capitalizations and, in turn, limit the ability of each of these corporations to access growth capital and expand. These types of events typically also have a negative feedback loop — in this case, if their market capitalization falls as expected, they would likely be dropped by Small Cap indices either automatically or intentionally, multiplying the impact. With their growth restricted, the expansion of immigration detention infrastructure would also necessarily slow. 

GEO Group and CoreCivic operate immigrant detention centers where human rights abuses have been well-documented for decades, ranging from medical neglect to sexual abuse to even death. Their business models require more people separated from their families, more people detained in their detention centers, and more people deported to create churn. Thus, to feed their bottom line, they support political candidates and lobby for policies that expand immigration enforcement and turn their back on the inhumanity of immigration detention. GEO Group was, in fact, the first corporation to max out campaign contributions to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign that centered and delivered a massive expansion of immigration detention. Since the election, both corporations have had a massive windfall, profiting from systemic racism, xenophobia, and the criminalization of migration.

We are in a moment of escalating anti-immigrant policies and action, with political leaders openly calling for mass deportations and detention expansion. Rising authoritarianism has brought militarized policing and violence into communities across the country. At the same time, public goods are being hollowed out in favor of unaccountable profit-driven prison corporations, such as GEO Group and CoreCivic. By staying with Vanguard, nonprofits risk enabling the infrastructure of political repression with their employees' own retirement funds.

Retirement fund management is one of Vanguard’s core business lines, and the widespread cancellation of service contracts and divestment from its funds has the ability to create a business disruption across one of its client verticals: non-profits and foundations. While larger accounts — meaning those with more employees and more assets — certainly have more impact, every pledge is important as it establishes a trend that encourages the next institution to take action. En masse, pledges create pressure for Vanguard, and other fund managers, to drop private prisons from their funds, and as one of the largest shareholders, this could make a big impact. 

More broadly, non-profits shape ethical norms and mass divestment pledges can delegitimize profiteering off of immigration surveillance, detention, and deportation and make it politically toxic to invest in human suffering. At the most direct level, every dollar moved is a dollar no longer helping to surveil, detain, deport, abuse, or exploit. And of course, taking this action helps protect your organization's reputation by aligning your money with your values.

We cannot endorse any specific retirement plan provider, but literally any other institution is better. Now, transparently, every commercial retirement plan provider will likely have some exposure to these private prison corporations but every shift in capital makes a difference. The truth is that even just divesting from GEO Group and CoreCivic is not enough, but it's a start. For those interested in exploring values-aligned investment strategies, we recommend working with an experienced socially responsible investment firm or independent financial advisor who can create a tailored solution for your institution. Worth Rises has partnered with Envestnet’s Value Overlay Services to provide a prison and detention screen for investors.