1st Amendment is just a suggestion, right??  A mom creates a website, “Who is Profiting from ICE?” Trump and Fed 'labeled it a tool for domestic terrorism.'

Laura Berlin watched images of immigration agents rounding up people and flying them to a Latin American prison without due process – and she knew she had to do something.

“That situation really haunted me,” she said.

She asked herself: “Who owned these chartered airliners that were flying the men to a Salvadoran prison? Who owned these detention centers where men were being held along the way?" In short, what companies were taking money from the government to help deport people? Berlin needed to know.

Using her background in nonprofit communications, she built an interactive Google Map titled, “Who is Profiting from ICE?” It plots the contractors across the country who work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to carry out the Trump administration’s deportation policies.

Activists found her online database and have used it to organize hundreds of protests across the country against these companies, shaming them into cutting ties with ICE. In one case, an East Coast bank broke with two prominent detention center contractors after account holders – including Jersey City, New Jersey – withdrew more than $350 million.

Protesters in January 2026 outside a Citizens Bank location in Northampton, Mass.
The U.S. government found her website, too – and labeled it a tool for domestic terrorism, according to a secret intelligence bulletin obtained by USA TODAY. It's the latest example of the Trump administration cracking down on dissent it says could veer into political violence.

“The egregious, dehumanizing rhetoric the administration and its allies have relied on to manufacture support for cruel and ill-advised policies was always going to ripple out and hurt people, including kids, in all kinds of ways,” Berlin said.

The anonymous Texas mother of two teenagers has been pulled out from behind her laptop into an uncomfortable spotlight.

Small research project caught fire after ICE shootings
When Berlin began her research in April 2025, two big names immediately caught her attention.

GEO Group and CoreCivic were awarded nearly $1 billion combined by ICE in the first year of the Trump administration’s crackdown in 2025. The two companies provide staff for detention centers, beds to house them, and ankle monitors to surveil those out on bond awaiting their hearings.

Berlin went down the research rabbit hole and discovered that Wells Fargo and Bank of America pledged to stop working with the pair, so she wondered – who is still lending to these companies?

She scoured corporate filings and found her answer: Citizens Bank, a Rhode Island institution with more than 1,000 branches on the East Coast.

She posted her research on boycottcitizens.org, and included a detailed Google Map that shows the nationwide web of companies, law enforcement agencies and politicians with ties to ICE.

It attracted a trickle of attention at first. But one group of organizers in Boston found her website and created De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition. The group had already successfully pressured Avelo Airlines to end its ICE contract for deportation flights in January.

De-ICE planned its first protest against Citizens Bank on a cold Jan. 7. That same morning on a snowy side street in Minneapolis, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good.

Berlin’s obscure website exploded. Website traffic surged from a few thousand visits to nearly 10 million hits. De-ICE Citizens recruited dozens of new volunteers. And they launched three dozen protests.

Days later, on Jan. 24, Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, fueling further outrage.

By March, 70 protests were planned at Citizens banks. By June, it was up to 140, spanning 17 states. The group collected individual withdrawal pledges from Citizens’ customers totaling $25 million.

They attended Citizens’ annual board meeting in person. They bought billboards in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania – and even hired a pilot to drag a banner over Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia during the MLB All-Star game in July.

For decades, Citizens Bank had a hard-earned reputation on the East Coast as a socially responsible lender, said Peyton Fleming, a spokesman for De-ICE Citizens, which partnered with Berlin. He pointed to a Citizens program to work with low-income borrowers.

That standing was stained by the loans to CoreCivic and GEO, Fleming said.

“The reputation damage was part of the strategy, and clearly the bank was upset with tarnishing their reputation,” Fleming said.

The strategy worked. In June, Jersey City officials said they’d pull $265 million from the bank, citing GEO’s operation of Delaney Hall, a detention facility which had drawn widespread condemnation. On July 14, Montclair voted to pull an additional $90 million.

The bank relented.

Three days later, Citizens posted a blog lamenting being targeted by activists and wrote that it would cut off the two contractors. It insisted it was not a decision influenced by the political campaign.

“This is a business decision based on changed commercial circumstances and does not reflect any change in our view regarding these companies’ business models or operations,” the unsigned blog read. Citizens Bank declined a USA TODAY interview request.

Days earlier, CoreCivic announced that it sold two California facilities back to DHS – freeing up more than $1.5 billion to inject into the company – and lowering the need for bank credit.

Citizens said it felt squeezed by the “debanking” effort. The Trump administration’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued controversial guidance to banks, warning of “fair access” violations for those who cut off loans to fossil fuel providers, gun manufacturers and private prisons.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/08/31/who-profits-from-ice-website-dhs-alert/91259795007/

Who's Profiting from ICE?
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1KeW54O65sJbdwu30iXkVwyvmTU_bqIQ&femb=1&ll=38.672256350769054%2C-102.42827618492672&z=3