One of the nation’s leading labor unions has been at the forefront in the fight against Immigration and Customs Enforcement since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. But one of the union’s affiliates is the largest shareholder in a bank that has invested nearly $10 million in companies that contract with ICE, equipping agents for raids and managing illegal alien detention facilities.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its affiliate, Workers United, have both vocally opposed ICE’s immigration enforcement operations. The SEIU joined recent protests against ICE in Los Angeles and railed against the “ICE terror machine.” The union’s anti-ICE activism hit a fever pitch after SEIU leader David Huerta was arrested by federal agents and charged with conspiracy to impede an officer after he allegedly attempted to prevent federal authorities from executing a search warrant in Los Angeles.
Workers United has said that it is “committed to passing comprehensive immigration reform that allows all immigrant workers to live and work without fear,” and the Starbucks Workers United division has called for “an end to the ICE raids.”
Workers United is also the single largest shareholder in Amalgamated Bank, an ideologically-driven financial institution that parrots left-wing talking points on climate change and the diversity agenda and brands itself “America’s socially responsible bank.” The SEIU affiliate owns 40% of Amalgamated Bank, according to the financial institution. The bank even boasted that the top five Democratic presidential campaigns banked with Amalgamated during the 2020 election season.
But first quarter 2025 disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal that the bank is invested in at least four companies that contract with ICE or Border Patrol.
The bank held over $1.1 million worth of shares in the GEO Group, which “operates special-purpose, state-of-the-art residential centers on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” according to the group’s website.
The bank’s longstanding investment in the GEO Group appears to have been particularly profitable, with the stock increasing in value by nearly 85% since the last quarter of 2022.
The SEC disclosure indicates that Amalgamated Bank held roughly $633,000 in CoreCivic, which calls itself “a longstanding federal government partner that operates immigration detention facilities.”
Of the top 2o ICE detention centers by detainee population as of January, Amalgamated Bank was invested in 13 of them because it owns shares of the GEO Group and CoreCivic, research from the Center for Union Facts indicates.
“Workers United has backed high-profile organizing campaigns by riding the wave of young workers’ progressive ideals,” said the Center for Union Facts’ Communications Director Charlyce Bozzello. “But behind the union’s carefully crafted image as a social justice warrior lies hypocrisy the union doesn’t publicize. It’s time workers and the public take a hard look at what this union really stands for.”
Amalgamated Bank also held more than $8.1 million worth of shares in Axon Enterprises, which was awarded a multimillion-dollar federal contract to provide ICE agents with tasers. The bank held another $27,000 worth of shares in Cadre Holdings, which does business with ICE and Customs and Border Protection, supplying the federal government with riot control equipment under the brand names “Safariland” and “Aardvark.”
Workers United, SEIU, and Amalgamated Bank did not respond to requests for comment.