The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) council is calling on the university to stop investing in companies tied to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The university is investing in companies who engage directly or indirectly with ICE, “despite calls for repeated ethical transparency,” the association said in a statement posted to social media on Saturday.
The university has allegedly invested in three companies that ban international humanitarian organization has linked to deportations from the U.S., according to a December 2024 document obtained by the Charlatan. Those companies have been identified as engineering firm Capgemini SE, biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. and information services provider Thomson Reuters.
In its statement, CUSA council said the university also invests in a fourth company, financial holdings company Fairfax, which it said “engages directly with the U.S. bail industry.”
The Charlatan has not been able to independently verify the university’s reported investments.
Carleton did not respond to the Charlatan’s request for comment before publication.
In an April statement to the Charlatan, Carleton said the university was committed to responsible investment practices as established by its responsible investing policy.
“Carleton is also a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment and Environmental,” media relations officer Steven Reid told the Charlatan in a statement.
“When new investments are considered, social and governance factors are utilized to judge financial returns as well as overall impact.”
In total, the university is investing more than $16 million in companies with ties to ICE, according to the council’s statement.
“These investments are nothing short of immoral and threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians across the U.S. and beyond,” the statement reads.
The agency’s practices — including detentions, deportations, separation of families and surveillance — violate human rights and principles of justice, the council said.
“Their use of racial profiling, deep surveillance and abusive practices in confinement are the subject of widespread condemnation by human rights watchdogs,” the statement said.
The U.S. government has deported more than 527,000 people this year, according to a news release from the Department of Homeland Security in late October. The administration is on track to deport almost 600,000 people by the end of President Donald Trump’s first year back in office, the release added. That figure would be more than double the deportations in 2024, based on statistics from the U.S. government.
ICE also engages in arbitrary detention, the refusal of legal information to detainees and targeting people of specific nationalities, according to a May 2025 report from Amnesty International.
The conditions in ICE detention facilities are overcrowded, unsanitary, often have expired food and do not have enough medical care, the report said.
In the statement, CUSA council condemned ICE’s practices and said the university should do the same.
“We call on Carleton to immediately and completely divest from all companies directly involved in, or tied to, ICE’s inhuman and deplorable practices,” the statement said.
“We should continue to condemn it — to make our voices firm,” said Boothaina Sheltami, engineering and design councillor and vice-chair of the university affairs committee.
Mohamad El Fitori, the chair of CUSA’s university affairs committee, said it’s important for Carleton to align its investments with its teachings.
“Carleton says we’re an institution that is respectful, that cares about human rights,” said El Fitori, a human rights and social justice and law student.
“There’s a disconnect between the way Carleton is acting and the values I am learning from the school.”
“We understand that the university isn’t going to divest in a day, but we would love it if there was a meaningful movement towards divestment,” he said. “What we’re seeing is the opposite.”
In addition to divestment, El Fitori said Carleton should start releasing an annually updated list of its financial holdings to increase transparency.
Pointing to Carleton’s divestment from companies related to South Africa’s apartheid in the 1980s, El Fitori said students have the power to influence the university.
CUSA is still working to address concerns about Carleton’s investments, El Fitori said.
“Carleton will eventually listen to its students if enough people are putting pressure on the university,” he said.
Featured graphic by Alisha Velji/the Charlatan
