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NY Times, July 31, 2019
Edelman, Public Relations Giant, Drops Client Over Border Detention Centers
By Tiffany Hsu
In May, executives from the giant public relations firm Edelman went to
Florida to pitch a potential client: a private prisons company with
contracts from the Trump administration to run immigrant detention centers.
The GEO Group, a multibillion-dollar business based in Boca Raton, was
being battered by negative media attention in the uproar over reports
that the United States was separating migrant children from their
parents at the Mexican border. Lawmakers were demanding access to
detention facilities.
The Edelman team, which included a former Trump administration
spokeswoman, proposed to reshape the GEO Group’s public image by
“proactively correcting the record” with a new narrative “that tells the
relevant stories directly to stakeholders,” according to a presentation
document reviewed by The New York Times.
After landing the job, Edelman was slated to start work in July. But
employees at the firm objected to the contract, and Edelman dropped the
GEO Group account.
According to several employees, Edelman reconsidered because of concerns
that news of its relationship with the prison company would be leaked,
leaving one of the world’s leading public relations firms with a
potential public relations crisis.
Other image management and consulting firms working for government
agencies involved in the detention centers have recently faced criticism
from consumers and their own employees. Ogilvy, the marketing and public
relations firm, tried to confront internal consternation this month over
its work for Customs and Border Protection, AdWeek reported. Last year,
employees at Deloitte and McKinsey pushed for the companies to end their
contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Several financial institutions have also backed away from the private
prison industry, with SunTrust, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, BNP
Paribas and Wells Fargo having cut ties with companies associated with
immigration detention centers like the GEO Group and CoreCivic.
Employees and executives from tech giants including Microsoft and Amazon
have also protested their companies’ ties to Immigration and Customs
Enforcement and other entities involved in the separation of migrant
children from their parents.
In a statement to The Times, Edelman confirmed that it had dropped the
GEO Group account. “Edelman takes on complex and diverse clients,” the
statement said. “We ultimately decided not to proceed with this work.”
Edelman has touted its strong values and refuses to work with clients in
the tobacco, coal or firearms businesses.
Lisa Ross, the president of Edelman’s office in Washington, helped set
up the presentation in Florida, according to a person who participated
in meetings where the pitch was discussed. The person added that one of
the Edelman employees who had delivered the pitch was Lindsay Walters,
who joined the company in April after serving as a deputy press
secretary in the White House. Ms. Ross and Ms. Walters did not respond
to a request for comment.
Early in a slide show presentation to the GEO Group, Edelman said that
“activists are using controversies around immigration to drive a wedge
between you and your stakeholders,” adding that “your current culture
and structure are not prepared for this fight,” according to documents
shared with The Times.
In June, after word reached Edelman employees that the company would be
doing work for the GEO Group, a debate sprang up on Fishbowl, a
networking app used for industry communications. Screen shots of the
Fishbowl messages from Edelman employees were shared with The Times.
“I am beyond disturbed,” one employee wrote.
Another wrote, “This is an inherently political, moral & values based
issue.”
Several employees wrote that Edelman executives seemed to want to keep
the GEO Group contract quiet, a move that they said was hypocritical and
“a red flag.”
Other employees disagreed with the objectors, chastising them for
“pearl-clutching about private prisons” and suggesting that they leave
“personal politics out of important client work.”
Some employees asked to not be assigned to the GEO Group project,
according to two people familiar with the requests. Others voiced their
misgivings to supervisors.
In a recent all-hands meeting in Edelman’s Washington office, executives
informed employees that the company was resigning the GEO Group project.
The executives “took the opportunity to basically shame us for ruining
the work for the company because they couldn’t trust us not to leak it
to the press,” one person wrote on Fishbowl. Other Edelman employees
made the same point in the Fishbowl thread.
In a statement, Edelman said, “This is an inaccurate reflection of what
happened at the meeting.”
The adjusted stock price for the GEO Group, a generous donor to
President Trump, has gone down 28 percent in the past year.
The company, which for several years operated a migrant housing facility
in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has been criticized by government officials. A
surprise inspection of a GEO Group processing center in California last
year by the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of
Homeland Security found bedsheets braided into nooses, inadequate
medical care and detainees who were improperly segregated and shackled.
The GEO Group is also battling a lawsuit, filed in 2017 by Washington
State’s attorney general, that accuses the company of paying thousands
of immigrant detainee workers $1 a day since 2015 to prepare food, wash
clothes and clean facilities. The state’s minimum wage is now $12 an hour.
In a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, the GEO Group’s chief
executive, George C. Zoley, said the negative associations that had
attached themselves to the GEO Group had resulted from a “deliberate
mischaracterization of our longstanding role as a quality service
provider to ICE.” He added that the GEO Group was “taking steps to more
aggressively tell our story to members of Congress, state legislators
and the general media.”
Mr. Zoley did not respond to a request for an interview.
On Tuesday, the GEO Group reported more than $82 million in net income
for the year so far, a 14 percent jump from the same period in 2018. But
in its annual report filed this year, the company said that “public
resistance” could damage its business.
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