A mom’s website shows who profits from ICE. Why Feds call it a ‘threat’

For context, a mom's website demonstrates who profits from ICE.

Key points

• She scoured corporate filings and discovered her answer: Citizens Bank, a Rhode Island institution with more than 1, 000 branches on the East Coast.
• GEO Group and CoreCivic were awarded almost $1 billion combined by ICE in the first year of the Trump administration's crackdown in 2025.
• 24, Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, fueling further outrage.
• For decades, Citizens Bank had a hard-earned reputation on the East Coast as a socially responsible lender, remarked Peyton Fleming, a spokesman for De-ICE Citizens.
• In June, Jersey City authorities stated they'd pull $265 million from the bank, citing GEO's operation of Delaney Hall, a detention facility which had drawn widespread condemnation.

For context, a mom's website demonstrates who profits from ICE. Why Feds call it a 'threat'. Nick Penzenstadler USA TODAY. Protests erupt throughout US after two fatal ICE shootings.

Protesters from Houston to Boston, Portland, Maine, and Los Angeles speak out after two recent ICE shooting deaths, citing fear and injustice.

Laura Berlin watched images of immigration agents rounding up individuals 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 remarked.

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 firms were taking capital from the administration to assist deport individuals? 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 nationwide who work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to carry out the Trump administration's deportation policies.

Activists discovered her online database and have employed it to organize hundreds of protests nationwide against these firms, 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.

For context, the U.S. Administration identified 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 notes 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 remarked.

Meanwhile, 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 major names immediately caught her attention.

GEO Group and CoreCivic were awarded almost $1 billion combined by ICE in the first year of the Trump administration's crackdown in 2025. The two firms 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 firms?

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

It attracted a trickle of attention at first. But one group of organizers in Boston discovered 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 almost 10 million hits. De-ICE Citizens recruited dozens of new volunteers. And they introduced three dozen protests.

Days afterwards, 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 session in person. They purchased 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, remarked Peyton Fleming, a spokesman for De-ICE Citizens. It 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 remarked.

"The reputation damage was part of the strategy, and clearly the bank was upset with tarnishing their reputation, " Fleming remarked.

Notably, the strategy worked. In June, Jersey City authorities stated 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 extra $90 million.

Three days afterwards, 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 confirmed that it sold two California facilities back to DHS – freeing up more than $1.5 billion to inject into the business – and lowering the need for bank credit.

Citizens remarked 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.

Berlin didn't stop there. Her research includes a searchable map of ICE's contracts with other major U.S. Firms that span the nation: AT&T, Comcast, Dell, Deloitte, FedEx, Motorola and Palantir. And that caught the attention of the Department of Homeland Security. DHS flags site in nationwide surveillance.

To Berlin, her online database is an significant tool for transparency, protected as free speech. To DHS, it's information that could be applied by "anarchist extremists."

That's according to a secret intelligence bulletin DHS sent to local and federal law enforcement in February, specifically targeting Berlin's website.

"Anti-ICE threat actors, including local anarchist extremists, may escalate otherwise peaceful direct action by carrying out acts of vandalism, often using spray paint, projectiles, blunt and edged objects and improvised incendiary devices, " the bulletin reads.

DHS applied the same alert for Berlin's website that it reserves for domestic terrorists. Previously, DHS has applied this code – HSEC SIN 8. It stands for Homeland Security Standing Information Need 8 – to flag information on ISIS beheading videos and pipe bombs in cities.

Berlin notes she was unaware her site was the subject of a law enforcement intelligence bulletin.

"At first, my stomach dropped, " she remarked. "But then I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it."

For context, the bulletin concedes, in red letters, that "some of this information describes First Amendment-protected activities."

DHS's warnings against Berlin echo the administration's pressure on Apple to remove the app ICE Block, where anonymous users could crowdsource ICE activity. DHS investigated left-leaning labor union and climate change groups in Minnesota it described as "violent opportunists and agitators." And a New York man was investigated for "criminal activities" after he emailed ICE Director Todd Lyons.

In practice, a spokesperson for DHS did not address the specific bulletin, but remarked information from local partners "helps sharpen the national threat picture."

For context, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Police Department. It sent the information to DHS, remarked the bulletins are compiled to identify "emerging threats and hazards" aimed at situational awareness, "not to characterize lawful activity or constitutionally protected speech as criminal conduct, " Sgt. Eric Gripp wrote.

DHS is targeting "even the mildest anti-ICE dissent as extremism and terrorism, " remarked Ryan Shapiro, executive director of the open administration group Property of the Individuals. It obtained the document.

In short, a moms website shows who profits from ICE. Why Feds call it is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.