A look at the companies profiting from their work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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As one of the global accounting giants that comprises the “Big Four,” Ernst & Young doesn’t come close to needing money from ICE to remain solvent. The money it has received from ICE in recent years pales in comparison to its total global revenue, which increased by 8 percent in the most recent fiscal year to $36.4 billion.The firm joins billion-dollar companies including Amazon, Palantir, AT&T, and Wayfair that are providing services to ICE. As ICE has increased its documented poor treatment of immigrants under the Trump administration, activists have launched campaigns calling for the boycott of companies like Microsoft and Amazon due to their continued work with the agency.While a small number of activists have condemned Ernst & Young for its work with the agency, the firm has yet to become the target of a concentrated boycotting effort. But earlier this week, it did face backlash following a report that it held a training seminar in June 2018 in which women employees were told to conform to sexist beauty and behavior standards, including not making face-to-face conversation with men and wearing flattering clothing that wasn’t too revealing.After news of the seminar went viral, the company issued an apology."This voluntary program, which was delivered to a small group of EY professionals, does not reflect EY’s values or culture and should not have been offered to any of our women,” a spokesperson from the firm told The Hill earlier this week.This post has been updated to include a statement from the company.Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.We have been hired by the Federal Government to provide business management support, including financial controls and data management for the Homeland Security CFO – nothing involving policy. We do not and would not engage in work that we believe will conflict with our values, purpose, culture and what we believe we need to do to build a better working world.