Progressive billionaire Tom Steyer has been telling California voters he wants to “abolish ICE” despite investing nearly $90 million in a company behind the state’s largest immigration detention center.
The California gubernatorial candidate has tried to swat off that criticism, but in a recent interview with the Sacramento Bee, he said it was a “mistake.”
“We never had anything to do with running the company,” Steyer said. “But it was a mistake to think that that was a place where it was decent to make money.”
Steyer founded a hedge fund named Farallon Capital Management in 1986. Under his management, the fund put money into CoreCivic, which runs private prisons. Farallon’s shares in the company was valued at $89.1 million at one point.
Now, the company runs five facilities in California, according to its website. At least two of them house people detained by federal immigration agents — one near San Diego and another in Kern County.
Steyer eventually left Farallon and sold his stake in the hedge fund in 2012.
The candidate’s ties to CoreCivic are coming under increased scrutiny by the left. After the implosion of U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s campaign this weekend, Steyer is now one of two leading Democratic competitors set to swoop up most of Swalwell’s voters and surge in the polls.
Steyer has framed his regret being involved with CoreCivic as a wake-up call that led him to walk away from the hedge fund industry. He said it also led to his work advocating against mass incarceration.
“It was also a big wake-up call that I was in the wrong place, that I was in a business that was taking me to places I absolutely didn’t want to go,” Steyer said at a March town hall. “And there’s a reason I walked away from that business and walked away from a ton of money.”
Candidates aren’t letting up on their attacks against Steyer as they attempt to link him with ICE.
“Before he was a progressive, he made millions off of companies that operate ICE detention centers, that operate private prisons that incarcerated young children,” state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said in an interview with an influencer late March.
Ads have bombarded televisions highlighting his link. The billionaire has aired ads trying to tell viewers that those other ads are false, Politico reported.
“Those investments were 20 years ago, and I left my firm over a decade ago and pledged most of my earnings to charity,” Steyer said in his hitback.
Regardless, Steyer is still seeing momentum. A poll dropped Tuesday, conducted April 8 to 10, showed him leading the entire field at 21%.
