New Data Shows Wall Street and Pension Funds Investing in ICE Contractors with Over $80 Billion ft. Richard Brooks w/ Stand.Earth (G&R 484)

Summary

Green & Red Podcast, Episode 484:

"New Data Shows Wall Street and Pension Funds Investing in ICE Contractors with Over $80 Billion"

Featuring Richard Brooks (Stand.Earth) | Released April 9, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, hosts Bob Buzzanco and Scott Parkin delve into a recent report from Stand.Earth revealing that Wall Street banks and U.S. public pension funds have invested over $80 billion in companies contracted by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Special guest Richard Brooks, Stand.Earth's Climate Finance Director, breaks down the significance of these investments, which tie mainstream finance not only to immigrant detention and deportation, but also to broader human rights and climate justice violations.

The conversation traces the interconnections between radical environmental, social justice, and anti-capitalist campaigns, making a strong case for coordinated financial activism to sever the money pipeline empowering ICE and its web of corporate enablers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Stand.Earth Investigated ICE Financiers

• Stand.Earth, primarily an environmental advocacy group, was motivated to track financial flows to ICE contractors because the communities most affected by climate devastation are also those most targeted by ICE.
• Brooks describes the deep overlap:

  “The bad actors, the financial institutions who are funding the climate crisis, are very much the ones who are also funding the companies that are enabling ICE to violate and bulldoze human rights and commit violence and murder in communities across the U.S.” —Richard Brooks [02:23]

• The organization used its internal research team to identify the main banks and pension funds providing critical financing to ICE's key contractors.

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2. California’s Pension Funds and ICE Connections

• The report spotlights the two largest U.S. public pensions: CalPERS and CalSTRS, with combined investments of $2.7 billion in ICE contractors.
• Despite California's "sanctuary state" status, these funds have minimal self-imposed restrictions on investments, aside from legislative bans on coal and tobacco.
• Decision-making power rests with boards of trustees composed of union, retiree, and state officials (including gubernatorial appointees).
• There’s active grassroots organizing—especially among teachers and retirees—demanding divestment from ICE contractors and arms manufacturers.

  “There is a group of teachers and retired teachers who are pushing...for the CalSTRS, the Teachers Pension Fund, to divest from ICE contractors and to divest from weapons manufacturers.” —Richard Brooks [07:38]

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3. Who Are the ICE Contractors?

• The report focuses on seven major U.S.-based, publicly traded ICE contractors, selected for recent or ongoing ICE contracts:
  • AT&T – telecommunications for monitoring; multi-billion dollar, multi-year contract [14:17]
  • Palantir – surveillance/data analytics; $1B+ government contract as of 2026 [12:34]
  • CoreCivic and GEO Group – private prison operators [09:44]
  • General Dynamics, L3Harris, and CASI – military and surveillance hardware suppliers [11:04]
• Notably, while some pension funds (like California’s) have divested from private prison companies, others (e.g., New York State Teachers Retirement System) still hold such investments.

Memorable quote on Palantir:

“The California CalPERS has more than $730 million invested in Palantir. CalSTRS has $600 million invested there. New York State Common Retirement Fund...has more than 400 million DOL dollars invested in Palantir.” —Richard Brooks [13:04]

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4. The Paradox of Progressive Funds Fueling Repression

• Even as teachers and public sector unions have been frontline opponents of ICE's aggressive policies, their retirement funds are heavily invested in companies fueling deportations and surveillance.
• Brooks underscores the disconnect:

  “The same teachers who have their pension in the CalSTRS pension fund are teaching kids of immigrant families which are being ripped apart. The disconnect is incredible.” —Richard Brooks [16:15]

• Pension fund officials argue their only obligation is “fiduciary,” aiming for maximum returns, without accounting for reputational risk or alignment with members’ values.

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5. Political and Union Responses

• Despite vocal grassroots campaigns, major union leadership has largely remained silent; organizers are relying on direct action and member-led initiatives.
• California State Senator Lena Gonzalez publicly criticized the pension funds following Stand.Earth’s data release, urging further fossil fuel and ICE contractor divestment [21:22].
• No notable statements or actions as of the episode from high-profile figures like Governor Gavin Newsom or union federations (e.g., UTLA).

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6. Wall Street’s Role: $72 Billion Since 2020

• Beyond pensions, eight major U.S. banks have collectively lent or arranged $72 billion in loans and bonds to ICE contractors since 2020.
  • Banks named: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, and others.
• The banks show, according to Brooks, little moral constraint, historically financing both fossil fuels and “the worst of the worst” in ICE’s supply chain.

“There is no filter or very little filter on what they will, will not invest or finance.” —Richard Brooks [23:25]

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7. Activism and Financial Pressure Campaigns

• Networks like Stop the Money Pipeline are mobilizing activists, pension members, and customers to contact banks and pension funds demanding divestment from ICE contractors [24:30].
• Stand.Earth and allies have launched online action centers for coordinated pressure, leveraging both consumer and member power.

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8. Broader Corporate Targeting and Lessons for Activists

• Activist campaigns have also focused on companies providing direct services to ICE (e.g., Delta, Target, Enterprise Rental Car), recognizing the entire corporate infrastructure enabling ICE’s activities.
• Brooks stresses that to be effective, activists must “attack on all these different angles to take them down and to undercut their financing, undercut their ability.”

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9. The “Money Pipeline” as Movement Leverage

• Brooks closes with a call to action:

  “When you follow the money and you engage with the money and you leverage the power that you have through your bank account, through your pension fund, through your position as somebody who pays taxes, you can make a difference here.” —Richard Brooks [31:32]

• He encourages listeners to check Stand.Earth’s website for data, tools, and ways to learn if their own finances are implicated, and urges broad sharing to build public awareness and momentum.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “The bad actors, the financial institutions who are funding the climate crisis, are very much the ones who are also funding...ICE.” —Richard Brooks [02:23]
• “The disconnect is incredible...the response from the CalSTRS staff...is just, is bonkers to say we’re here just to maximize profits.” —Richard Brooks [16:44]
• “There is no filter or very little filter on what they will, will not invest or finance.” —Richard Brooks [23:25]
• “We need to use all the tools at our disposal...People need to seize that power and use those relationships to advocate for change at their financial institution.” —Richard Brooks [27:08]
• “There is hope, there is a track record of success. We have been able to stop awful things from happening in the world when we have stopped money from flowing.” —Richard Brooks [32:29]

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Key Segment Timestamps

• [02:11] — Motivation for data report: Connections between climate justice & ICE funding
• [04:30] — Structure and investment policies of California pension funds
• [08:19] — List and explanation of key ICE contractors
• [12:34] — Palantir’s surveillance contracts with ICE
• [14:17] — AT&T’s role in ICE telecommunications monitoring
• [16:15] — Disconnect between teachers’ activism and pension fund practices
• [21:22] — California Senator Lena Gonzalez’s response
• [22:39] — Wall Street bank financing: $72B to ICE contractors
• [24:30] — Organizational activism: Stop the Money Pipeline
• [27:08] — Coordinated corporate pressure campaigns
• [31:32] — Brooks’ closing call to make change via financial leverage

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Resources & Next Steps

• Stand.Earth’s website: Contains links to the full data set, action tools, and instructions for checking personal links to ICE contractor financing.
• Stop the Money Pipeline: Coalition partnering on anti-ICE, anti-fossil finance campaigns (includes an action center for contacting banks and pension funds).
• Brooks urges widespread sharing of the data and taking direct action against both banks and pension funds fueling the ICE machine.

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Summary Author: Green & Red Podcast Summarizer
For full data and actions: stand.earth | Green & Red Podcast

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Green and Red Scrappy Politics for Scrappy People, a regular podcast on radical environmental and anti capitalist politics brought to you by Bob Bozanko and Scott Parkins.

[B]

Welcome to the silky smooth sounds of the Grain of Red podcast. I am Scott Parkin in Berkeley, California today and as always, I am joined by Bob Bozanco in Ohio. And today we're going to be talking about the deportation crisis and ICE and the we're going to actually be talking a little bit about some of the structural stuff and some of the corporate support that the, that the Trump regime and Department of Homeland Security and ice, et cetera, have gotten from the private sector. And so joining us to talk about that today is Richard Brooks. Richard is the climate finance director at Stan Earth who's actually just put out a new report that has revealed that US banks and pension funds have some $80 billion into ICE contractors. So Richard, welcome to the Green and Red podcast.

[A]

Thanks for having me here.

[B]

Okay, so maybe just to start off is we've seen this document, this deportation crisis happening in the U.S. they're deporting people across the country. ICE is also acting, is attacking U.S. citizens, including the murder of Renee Good and Alex Preddy in Minneapolis. And then they're also building out this infrastructure of detention centers where we're hearing about terrible abuses, child abuse, sexual abuse in custody, murder. STAND has put out this report revealing that US banks and pension funds have sunk $80 billion into ICE contractors, which is actually not that surprising, but it's just a staggering amount. And so maybe you could actually start off with telling us about what motivated you all at STAND to put out this data and this report.

[A]

Yeah, Stand Earth is traditionally seen as an environmental advocacy organization. So it might be a bit odd for us to be putting out information about ice, but it actually isn't because the bad actors, the financial institutions who are funding the climate crisis are very much the ones who are also funding the companies that are enabling ICE to violate and bulldoze human rights and commit violence and murder in communities across the US and it's the very same people that are being impacted by ICE's actions that are the people most affected and most impacted by the climate CR as well as the pollution, the localized pollution that is caused by the build out of new petrochemical facilities or the new gas infrastructure or oil pipelines or oil terminals, refineries. You've probably heard it so many times. The climate, climate justice and social justice are very much intertwined. And at the root of the problems that communities are facing that the climate is facing that our environment facing always agreed in capitalism. And we wanted to make a contribution to the pushback against ice. Many of our movement partners, our friends, our family are being impacted by ICE activities. And it's one of those moments where I think everybody needs to lean in. All organizations need to come together in order to confront the crises, multiple crises that we are in, human rights crises, environmental crises, climate crises, et cetera, and work together. We have a research team in house at STAND that is really good at pulling and compiling financial data. And we turn that team's attention and energy into digging into who is funding and enabling ICE to do what they are doing. And unfortunately uncovered that it's many public pensions and quite a few banks as well.

[C]

Okay, what is the California pension system like? Does it have rules on who can invest with who's vested in the system? Does it involve labor unions? Just talk about the the Cal pension system and the rules for its investments.

[A]

Yeah, the California pension system. So there's two pension funds that are named in our report that are based in California. They're actually the two largest public pensions in the United States. So that's the California Public Employees Retirement System, CalPERS, and a similar pension that covers teachers in California. The two largest pensions in the United States. Very significant exposure to ICE contractors to the tune of about $2.7 billion split between the two of them. And that's just exposure to a handful of ICE contractors that we named in our report. CalPERS and CalSTRS do not have many restrictions on what they will not invest in or do not invest in. It's pretty much an open market for them. They are currently limited from investing in most thermal coal companies. And that restriction was put in place a number of years ago through the California legislature. So the California legislature had to step in to force both CalPERS and CalSTRS to divest from thermal coal companies. And they have been doing that, enabling that divestment, kicking and screaming. And several years prior to that legislation put in place, both pension funds were restricted from investing in tobacco companies. Funny enough, they do put out reports every year where they lament how much money they supposedly have lost by not being invested in those two industries. But otherwise, not really many restrictions on what they can invest in. And certainly when it comes to ICE contractors, they have not taken a position against investing in the worst of the worst.

[C]

Just a quick follow up. Who makes these decisions? Is it like the governor, appoint the board or do the constituents to the pension fund, the teachers or whoever have a say in it?

[A]

Yeah. So the governance systems for both pensions are fairly similar. Similar in the sense that they have a board of trustees which is made up of either, you know, in the case of teachers, like there's a few retired teachers on there, there's union appointees. There is, there is. What are they called? The. I think the California Comptroller is on there as well. Similarly for CalPERS as well, you have a governor's appointee in there as well, members of the unions that are covered by the CalPERS Employee Retirement System and other appointees. So it's a governing board. They do have an executive. They both pension funds have executive directors who oversee things. They do have chief financial officers. The board itself, though, has the power to set restrictions. So they could issue a directive to the investment committee, investment managers to withhold investments or divest from particular companies if they chose to.

[B]

And have we been seeing advocates already pushing on the pension funds around ICE funding?

[A]

They have, yeah. There's been. There is a group of teachers and retired teachers who are pushing right now quite actively for the CalSTRS, the Teachers Pension Fund, to divest from ICE contractors and to divest from weapons manufacturers. And that's going back to the conflict that broke out with Israel attacking Gaza and invading Gaza. A movement to have the California Teachers Retirement Fund divest from weapons manufacturers that are arming Israel and allowing Israel to commit genocide in Gaza.

[B]

And who are some of the contractors that these pension funds are going into?

[A]

Yeah, so the analysis that we did is we focused in basically on seven different companies. We. There's a large universe of companies, unfortunately, that are enabling ICE via contracts, supplying them with all manner of things to allow them to commit the atrocities that they are committing virtually every day in the United States against communities. So we focused in on publicly traded companies that are US based and that have either new contracts or contracts that are ongoing with ice. So we use the marker of contracts issued since the beginning of the second Trump administration. So the beginning of January 2025 or a contract in the case of AT&T, that is a multi year contract that is carrying forward from 2021 to 2027. Besides ATT, we looked at Palantir, Corecivic, Geo Group, General Dynamics, a company called CASI and L3Harris. And I can talk more a little bit about what those companies are doing. Finland maybe?

[B]

Yeah, I guess my first question is around Corecivic and Geo Group. Those are private prison companies, I believe. And there's been a lot of campaigning advocacy on those companies in the past just around private prisons and then around the immigration detention. Maybe we could start off with those two.

[C]

Sure.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You named it. The CoreCivic and GEO Group are two of the largest private incarceration, private detention companies in the world. Very active in the United States. Certainly they supply a core component to ICE to allow them to be able to detain individuals. And in the case of like thousands of individuals, individuals in the United States. Since the first administration, there are, the first Trump administration, there had been a movement to get public pension funds in particular to divest and get out of these particular companies, seeing them as most emblematic of ice's awful conduct. But there's quite a few public pensions that have not divested from CoreCivic or GEO Group and remain heavily invested in, in both of them, which is really unfortunate. I was quite surprised to learn that the. For example, the New York State Teachers Retirement System still has investments in the GEO Group despite a push that started nearly a decade ago to get them to divest from private prison companies. CalPERS and CalSTRS are not invested in Corecific and GEO Group as far as we can tell. But there are many other pensions, public pensions that remain invested in them.

[B]

And then when we're looking at General Dynamics and CASI and I believe L3 as well, they're all more like military weapons type companies, correct?

[A]

That's correct, yeah. So those three companies are basically supplying ICE with military equipment. They are also supplying them with surveillance equipment as well. So ice's ability to be able to, you know, focus in on particular communities or particular individuals has enabled through the equipment that those three companies basically supply ICE with. And there again, again, looking at public pension systems in the US Quite a few of them are exposed, have what I would call significant investments in those three companies who in no way could you describe other than being weapons and surveillance companies. There's no way of slicing and dicing it to make it appear like they are beneficial companies. These are companies that are whose DNA is to. To equip organizations like ICE and others with military, military style equipment to be able to do military style operations against communities or other countries.

[B]

And then Palantir, which we've done shows on in the past on Palantir, and Palantir has actually been in the news a lot since the second Trump administration is develop surveillance systems and databases. Correct. And it's been doing that for ICE for to track undocumented folks as well as activists.

[A]

That is right. That is right. Yeah. And they were just issued just recently a very large $1 billion contract with the US government to expand on their supply of surveillance technology and spying technology to the US Government, including Homeland Security and anti. So the relationship between Palantir and the US Government seems to be growing. And that's where we're also seeing some of the most significant investments by public pensions in the United States.

[B]

Really.

[A]

The California CalPERS has more than $730 million invested in Palantir. CalSTRS has $600 million invested there. New York State Common Retirement Fund, which is often seen as one of the most progressive funds in the country, has more than 400 million DOL dollars invested in Palantir.

[B]

Is that because of the California connection, because Palantir started in California, or is it just the way in which the market works?

[A]

Most likely it's the way the market works. California's pensions being the largest public pensions in the US tend to have just more investment in any company as a result of having such a significant capital fund. And then as you get into smaller pension funds, they tend to have less exposure. There are occasions where you do have an overexposure based on the relative size of a pension fund. But in this case, I think it's mostly a product of the fact that California's pensions are the largest. And Palantir is one of the larger companies that we looked at here in this data set. AT&T is another.

[B]

That was my last question.

[A]

Yeah. Many of the public pensions, including the California pensions, have significant investments in AT&T. I think what's important to say about ATT is that when you, you compare them to the rest of the companies that we looked at, some people will say with at&t, they're a telephone company or they're a cell phone company. They're not, they're not a company that rises to the top in terms of thinking about surveillance or, or military equipment. And that's true. But they are also a company that has chosen to do business with ICE through a multi year, multi billion dollar contract to very much equip ICE with the ability to monitor telecommunications. And the only reason why ICE wants to monitor telecommunications is to be able to target individuals and communities for detention, for violence, for harassment. T and T is in no way cleaner than any of these other companies. They are a company that is responsible for or partially responsible for what we are seeing every day happen in communities across the US because of vice, AI

[C]

and tech have driven the market gains significantly. And so I suspect that's. I mean, I get the sense these people are technocrats more than ideologues who are making these investments. And companies like Palantir and Nvidia and AT&T are good investments at this point. There's a real more than an irony there that the people who I think fought ICE most vigorously in the streets were the teachers. They were certainly among them. And just what they did was incredible. And their pension is investing in the very means of repression that's being used against them. And you mentioned a group called I think CalSTRS divest. Are they, what do they. And you mentioned it earlier too, but are they specifically, do they have a campaign going? Like, how are they trying to take this on?

[A]

Yeah, they do have a campaign going. And I think you name a really good point here is that when you look at the California pensions, for example, California prides itself on being a sanctuary state. And they are also a state that has been heavily targeted by the Trump administration across the board. But particularly that's one of the priority places where ISIS been deployed. And for them to, for their pension funds not to act to align their investments with the values of Californians. And the fact that Californian residents, California residents are being actively targeted and prioritized for targeting by ICE doesn't make sense to me. And this is where I am just gobsmacked by this data and the fact that this exists. This isn't a new problem. The first administrator, first Trump administration very much identified that they were going to be targeting communities of color in particular states through ice. We, I think we collectively knew what was going to happen when Trump got reelected and started pouring more money into ICE and they started unleashing terror across communities around the U.S. it's now been almost a year and a half of this administration, more than enough time for California pensions and other public pensions to act on this information and to disentangle themselves from being involved in these companies that are enabling ICE to do what they're doing. The same teachers who have their pension in the CalSTRS pension fund are teaching kids of immigrant families which are being ripped apart. The disconnect is incredible. And the response from the calstr staff who are administering these funds is just, is bonkers to say we're here just to maximize profits, that our sole and only responsibility is a fiduciary one. And we interpret, interpret our fiduciary responsibility so narrowly that it's all about dollars and cents. And they don't understand. They don't, they don't seem to conceptualize that when you are investing in a company that is, whose reputation is being tarnished because they are closely associated with an awful agency that is committing murder on the streets of the United States. There is a financial risk that is being baked into these companies as well. Regardless of that, the misalignment in terms of the values of the members that they're purporting to create retirement savings for is really troubling. And it's not like these pension funds, in the case of California don't have a history of actually getting out of certain sectors. They, as I mentioned before, they have divested from coal companies, they have divested from tobacco companies. Those can be very profitable industries or have been profitable industries in the past. But they didn't make sense for those pension funds to be invested in because of the values that they, that those industries represent and the misalignment with their members values. I think it's horrendous that they are invested in these companies and that's why folks are taking this, taking our data, but using data that was previously released to advocate for change at these public pension funds. It's really important.

[B]

When I think of some of the most radical teachers unions which have been on the streets, I think of Los Angeles, I think Oakland has had the biggest strike in San Francisco. How are these, the United Teachers of Los Angeles, for example, responding? Have they put out any statement or

[A]

said anything about this since we released it last week? I've not seen an official statement by any of the unions involved. And maybe that speaks a little bit to the union leadership and how they may not be as closely in touch with their members as they should be because certainly their members are being quite vocal on social media and they have these grassroots campaigns that have existed for a number of years pushing their their pensions to divest from companies that are connected to ICE or connected to weapons manufacturers or enable the governments like the Israeli government to commit genocide in Gaza. This is not a new phenomenon, but you tend to not have union leadership be very vocal about this. And certainly things have not changed because these investments in these ISA contractors go back several years and we're not seeing a significant difference in terms of their holdings over time.

[C]

Is Gavin Newsom or Karen Bass or any other official said anything about that? Been asked even about this?

[A]

I haven't seen a comment from Governor Newsom. Senator Lena Gonzalez did put some commentary out last week when the data was released. The LA Times, who did an in depth piece on this data, reached out to her office for commentary and she was quite critical of the pension funds and concerned that they were continuing to invest in these companies. Senator Gonzalez has been at the forefront of pushing these two pension funds in California to divest from fossil fuels and has introduced an advanced legislation to force those pension funds to do so for a number of sessions in a role formally as the Senate Majority Leader in California.

[B]

My question is just going to switch a little bit into the other sector which is heavily involved here, because in the data your press release, it talks about 8.8 billion comes from 30 public pension funds. But then we have 72 billion in loans and bonds to ICE contractors since 2020 from the top eight US banks, which is essentially Wall Street. I'm wondering if can you talk a little bit about that? And as I'm a longtime bank campaigner and it's no surprise, but it's just getting the information data out there I think is important.

[A]

Yeah. So there's a couple of financial pillars that hold up ICE and enable it to do what it is doing. So the shareholders, so the investors are a big part of that. And that includes the public pension funds, which we already spoke about. And then the other pillar are the banks who issue loans and bonds and lines of credit, what we call revolvers or revolving credit facilities to these companies as well. And they are, they are critically important to focus in on. They're, they are critical or critical enablers of ICE contractors. Without access to capital companies like AT&T Casi, Palantir would not be able to grow their businesses and to be able to secure contracts with ice. Not a big surprise to me that the big banks in the US Are involved with these companies and that includes Wells Fargo, bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, et cetera. And not a surprise to me because they, they are also the companies that are most heavily financing fossil fuel companies worldwide. So they do have a track record of being involved in the, the worst of the worst and enabling them. I think there is no filter on or very little filter on what they will, will, will not invest or finance. And so not a surprise that they are heavily financing these companies as well.

[B]

And bank advocacy is evident flowing lately as we've seen anti ESG stuff. But have any of the, have any of these groups like anti ICE campaigns or anything like that began to take this up with the Wall street banks?

[A]

They have, there's a network that we are part of called the Stomp the money pipeline. And they are very active.

[B]

We've had people from Stomp on this show maybe in the.

[A]

Yes. So that, that's a network of basically many different organizations who are working to challenge our financial institutions. To get out of fossil fuels. And they have turned their attention to ICE contractors in the last little while. When we put out this data publicly, we we partner with the Stop the Money pipeline to launch an action center so people can take a quick action, put in their contact information and sends out an email directly to senior execs at the big banks, at the big asset managers and several of the pension funds saying we want you to stop this. We're either we're customers and we have savings accounts or mortgages. One of your banks, we are taxpayers who are partially financing these public pensions or we are members of these pensions. And so yeah, Stop the Mining pipeline has been active in bringing attention to this and I think we'll continue to put pressure on these banks to stop financing ICE contractors.

[B]

One of the things I've been interested to see when we were in this height of crisis in Minneapolis, or at least the ones thus far back in January, February, I saw a lot more what I would call corporate campaigning or anti corporate campaigning on companies over other held up other were awful pillars on Isaac Hilton. And I think Delta Airlines and Target was a big target. We saw pieces from the nation with people like Eric Blanc and things like that. How do you see this around the pension funds and around the financial players like fitting in with that?

[A]

I think it's very complimentary. I think the, there's a whole universe of companies that are enabling ICE to do what they are doing. From offering accommodations to ICE officers to basically renting them vehicles.

[B]

Yeah, Enterprise Rental Car was another one. That's right, yeah.

[A]

To giving them the technology and the equipment to enact terror across communities and to target communities through intelligence gathering. And so I think they all fit together and the banks and the pension funds are critical part of that too. If they weren't financing, if they weren't investing in these companies and the companies wouldn't have the ability to, as I said, they wouldn't be able to secure these contracts with ice. So we need to use all the tools at our disposal. We need to, to be an effective pushback movement that can slow ISIS activities or stop ISIS activities. We need to attack on all these different angles to take them down and to undercut their financing, undercut their ability to secure equipment, to get accommod, to rent vehicles, to be able to surveil to the extent that they are surveilling and that that's why we're trying to get this data into the hands of as many people as possible so they can take action. Because in the end it is, as I said, it's people's savings accounts, it is their mortgages, it is their pensions, it's their taxpayers dollars that are all going into enabling this financial trend, these financial transactions to occur. And that is a lot of power. People need to seize that power and use those relationships to advocate for change at their financial institution.

[C]

Other states have done these kinds of surveys on their pension system.

[A]

You mean in house, have they done surveys? Yeah.

[C]

Are you familiar with any they've put out? I was in Texas for 30 years and they would invest in like the mafia if you could do that. So I just wonder if other states have done these kind or there are groups that have surveyed other state pensions like this as well.

[A]

I, when it comes to I contractors, I've seen, I've seen examples of groups who have dug into some of the publicly available information about where their city or state pension funds are investing and they are advocating for change. So I know there's a group of organizations in New York City, for example, who are advocating to get the New York City pension funds, which are really, I think the most progressive ones in the country, to cut their ties with some ICE contractors as well. So it is popping up and I think we will see more of this happen in the weeks and months to come using some of the data that we have, but also as people just dig into it more and try to figure out how they can make a difference in terms of pushing back against ISIS activities.

[B]

I've got just one sort of general question left. I don't know if Bob has the other questions getting towards the end of our time.

[C]

Yeah, no, I think it's probably the same thing you're going to ask.

[B]

One thing I'll say, Richard, is I really appreciate y' all putting out this information because I actually think this is really important and I think having giving, putting strategy in the hands of people, which is in many ways what this is like really important. So I just want to really appreciate, send a lot of appreciation to you and the research team at Standout, particularly since a lot of not all enviro and climate groups are willing to put it out there like this. My, my last question is like, where can people find more information just so we can like. And we'll put it in the show notes too, just to direct people towards where to find this information.

[A]

Okay. Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. It's hard, I would say, to be working at an environmental organization that's working on climate issues and to know that all these issues are so interrelated. And when you dig down and you look at what the root is, the root cause of the climate crisis, the environmental crisis, the pollution that are facing communities, the injustices that are being perpetrated on those same communities by ice, the migration crisis, the refugee crisis that's happening around the world and what the roots of that is, the inequality that exists in the United States and the kind of concentration of it all points to the same thing, a real imbalance in the economic system that we are operating under in most of the world and particularly in the United States. And our team at SAND really felt like we wanted to stand up and do the right thing here and put this data out.

[B]

How fitting with the bank.

[A]

And I really hope that people can take the data and find innovative ways to engage with their public pension funds or banks or other financial institutions around it. Because I think it's so important, important to, for people to be active, to be hopeful that they can do something. And speaking from experience, and it's long experience working on corporate campaigning and experience working the intersection of finance on climate, we can as a movement make a difference. When you follow the money and you engage with the money and you leverage the power that you have through your bank account, through your pension fund, through your position as somebody who pays taxes, you can make a difference here. So I want that to be a message that folks take home from this, that there is hope, there is a track record of success. We have been able to stop awful things from happening in the world when we have stopped money from flowing. And what we need to do here is to stop the money from flowing from these banks and these pension funds into the companies that are equipping ICE with the equipment that they have to be able to do the awful things that they are doing. Message number one is be helpful. Message number two is to find out more, go to the Stan Earth website on our homepage there are links to this data where you can dig into it. You can find out if your bank is financing ice and there are action tools available so you can very least quickly communicate with those banks or pension funds. And then I would urge people to check out the Stand Earth socials as well. We're on most social media channels. We have a lot of accessible. We made the data very accessible and digestible and we need to share it out. We need a lot more people to see it, to understand it and then get motivated to take action around it. So I would urge folks to do those things.

[B]

Yeah, really appreciate it. That's great folks. We've been talking with Richard Brooks, who is the Climate Finance Director at Stand Earth. If you like what you hear, or if you really like us, please check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, bluesky and Standard Earth on all of those. And if you're watching this on YouTube, hit that subscribe button. If you're listening to this on audio platform, give us a rate and review. It helps us with the algorithms. And if you really like this, go to greenerdpodcast.org and hit the support button or become a [e-mail] Richard, really appreciate you coming on. Really, like I said, really appreciate this data they are putting out there. Everyone else out there make trouble and misbehave and we'll talk to you again soon.