Press release from Fuerza on rally outside Arizona Board of Regents meeting today at the University of Arizona student union:

On Thursday, December 6, 2012, community members and students from the University of Arizona will speak out before the Arizona Board of Regents. This is an effort to heighten public pressure for Board of Regents member, Dennis DeConcini to resign his position from the board of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). At 9 am, the public is invited to speak in front of the Arizona Board of Regents’ meeting. Organizers from the Fuerza! Coalition, concerned community members, and students plan to offer public statements urging DeConcini to step down from his CCA board position.

CCA is the nation’s largest private prison company and leading jailer of immigrant detainees. With a recent contract for 1,000 new Arizona state prison beds and six existing facilities in Arizona, the company profits from continued mass incarceration and immigrant detention. Lifetime Tucson resident and three-term Democrat Senator Dennis DeConcini is a CCA shareholder and Board member and profits directly from the incarceration of Tucson families.

From 12-1pm, students will host a press conference and rally in support of the efforts directed towards former US Senator DeConcini. In a recent op-ed in the Arizona Daily Wildcat, graduate student Patricia Hohl expressed her concerns, “It is unsettling to think there are Board of Regents members actively profiteering from the increasing prison and detention population.” Fuerza! and UA students call on Senator DeConcini to immediately resign from the CCA Board and denounce the company.

There will also be a press conference at noon in front of student union on the UA mall.