Geo Group protest
Boca company denies running facilities for unaccompanied minors
Demonstrators in Boca denounce the company’s business in prisons and immigration detention involving children.
More than 100 people gathered Tuesday at Geo Group’s temporary headquarters in Boca Raton to protest the company’s business in prisons and immigration detention involving children.
“We’re here to protest Geo Group because they profit from the suffering of humans,” said Nailah Summers, spokeswoman for Dream Defenders, which refers to itself as a civil rights organization. The group was joined by members of the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
Geo spokesman Pablo Paez said Dream Defenders’ “allegations are outrageous and based on malicious lies about our company.” He said Geo “has never managed facilities that house unaccompanied minors, including those who have been separated from their parents, nor have we ever provided any other services for that purpose.”
Paez said Geo manages specialpurpose residential centers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Geo is one of the country’s largest contractors for ICE and the U.S. Marshal’s Service. Among the detention centers, it operates the Karnes Family Residential Center in Karnes City, Texas, which holds mothers and children. It was established in 2014 by the Obama administration.
Dream Defenders said Geo tried to stop its protests, which are also taking place at Geo facilities or political offices in New York, Arizona and California, by targeting the group with a cease-and-desist letter.
The protest group shared a letter dated Aug. 3 from Holland & Knight lawyer Carolyn Short, who said she represents Geo, that demanded that “all false and malicious information published on [Dream Defenders’] website … be removed immediately.”
The protesters gathered at Geo’s temporary headquarters because Geo is building a new headquarters in Boca Raton.
The “allegations are outrageous and based on malicious lies about our company.”
Pablo Paez, Geo Group spokesman