1. United States
2. Md.
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to introduce legislation requiring our state to divest public funds from corporations providing material support for immigration detention and surveillance operations, and to prohibit new contracts with these companies. Thirty-eight states have already passed laws conditioning contracts on corporate conduct through anti-BDS legislation. This proposal uses that same legal authority and framework. Our state's pension funds and procurement contracts currently channel public dollars to companies like Palantir Technologies, which built ImmigrationOS for ICE under a $30 million contract signed in April 2025 and holds $970.5 million in total federal contracts. We are invested in private detention companies GEO Group and CoreCivic, which operate approximately 90% of private immigration detention facilities and donated $2.8 million to the 2024 campaign and inaugural fund. We contract with surveillance firms like Clearview AI, which scraped 50 billion photos and sold its database to ICE for $9.2 million, and LexisNexis, whose Accurint system was queried 1.2 million times by ICE in seven months. These investments flow through our pension funds and procurement systems without public debate or legislative approval. The legal framework is well established. The market participant doctrine gives states broad protection when acting as buyers or investors. The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Act of 2010 recognized that state divestment decisions are not preempted by federal law. The Eighth Circuit upheld Arkansas's anti-BDS law in 2022 using this identical legal architecture. California passed AB 32 in 2019 prohibiting CalPERS from holding private prison stocks. New York City divested $48 million from private prisons in 2017 with no measurable impact on returns. CalPERS tobacco divestment showed no negative financial impact. When eight major banks eliminated 87.4% of credit lines to GEO Group and CoreCivic, these companies had to seek financing from Japanese banks, demonstrating that coordinated action creates real market pressure. I am asking you to introduce legislation establishing a two-tier divestment system. Tier 1 would require a 180-day phase-out of investments in and contracts with core surveillance, detention, and related companies. Tier 2 would establish a 540-day transition period for Big Tech companies with allowances for existing enterprise licenses while we develop alternative procurement strategies through cooperative purchasing infrastructure like NASPO ValuePoint. Our public funds should not subsidize companies profiting from mass detention and surveillance. This legislation would align our investments with our values while using the same legal authority already exercised by dozens of states.