Background

In 2015, Multnomah County divested from the 200 biggest fossil fuel companies. Last year, the county passed a budget note directing the county's CFO to look in to environmental, social, and governance guidelines for future investments. This year, we call on the county to continue this work. Investments in Amazon and OSTF conflict with Multnomah County's legal duty as a sanctuary county, contribute to environmental destruction, support labor law violations, and underpin some of the most deadly military violence in the world.

Sanctuary County

Multnomah is a sanctuary county in a sanctuary state. In 2016, Multnomah County passed a resolution affirming the county's commitment to its sanctuary responsibilities. While there are many state laws clarifying Oregon's role as a sanctuary state, ORS 181A.826 is particularly pertinent. It states, "Public facilities, property, moneys, equipment, technology or personnel may not be used for the purpose of investigating, detecting, apprehending, arresting, detaining or holding individuals for immigration enforcement". Further, it is illegal for the county to give resources in any way toward the end of aiding federal action to deport migrants of any status. By investing in Amazon, the county is giving $5,000,000.00 toward the surveillance used by DHS and ICE to locate, detain, and deport migrants.

ICE's Investigative Case Management (ICM) system is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). The ICM system aggregates public and private databases to track down immigrants. AWS also hosts several Department of Homeland Security (DHS) servers, including biometric data for 230 million people, which includes fingerprints, face records, and iris scans. This information is being actively used to track, detain, and deport people.

Environmental Destruction

Amazon has a notorious record of environmental degradation. Amazon facilities increase carbon emissions. The company pledged in 2019 to be completely carbon neutral by 2040, but increased emissions 40% from that point in 2021, and only decreased emissions by .4% the next calendar year.

Beyond its own pollution, Amazon has actively worked to stop climate regulations in Oregon. Amazon lobbied relentlessly to crush Oregon House Bill 2816, which would have required data center and crypto miner facilities to run entirely on clean energy sources by 2040, in line with the state's climate targets laid out in 2021 and Amazon's own climate pledge.

Labor Law Violations

Amazon is notorious for labor law violations at a national level and right here in Multnomah County.

In Multnomah County, the Amazon warehouse in Troutdale (known as PDX9) is responsible for the highest rate of injuries of any Amazon warehouse in the country, more than six times the national average. Approximately one in four workers at PDX9 have been injured on the job at Amazon.

To add insult to injury, Amazon has committed widespread wage theft in Oregon. In the largest wage-and-hour class settlement in Oregon history, the court found they had accrued 40,000 hours of unpaid wages, due to an illegal rounding policy.

Military Violence

Amazon cloud commuting services store data for the IOF regarding the people in Gaza. Since 2023, Amazon has also contributed AI services to Israel, as their internal military systems became overloaded with so many soldiers trying to upload data. These AI programs include "Lavender" and "The Gospel," and are instrumental in Israel's onslaught of bombing on the Gaza strip. The genocide in Gaza has killed at least 61,709 people and injured over 111,500 people.

The additional impacts of destruction of infrastructure, toxic debris, infectious disease, and water contamination have not yet been fully accounted for. Military action from Israel, with the logistical support of Amazon, has produced over 536,410 tons of CO2, deforested ancient olive groves, and ultimately constitutes ecocide under International Humanitarian Law.

Multnomah County's Role

Multnomah County's most recent investment report includes nearly $20 million in Amazon securities, actively reaping returns from the suffering of Palestinians, immigrants, asylum seekers, and workers. This raises ethical concerns about the county's corporate investments, causing us to question whether the county truly stands by its values of racial, economic, and climate justice. A further look into the county's most recent investment report substantiates these concerns.

The county also has Bank of America, Apple, and Citibank holdings. Bank of America had to pay $250 million in government penalties. The bank illegally accessed private customer information to open fraudulent accounts on people's behalf without their consent. It also wrongfully withheld credit cards and double-charged its customers. Apple's support of child labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) shows an apparent disregard for human rights. The DRC recently called on Apple to substantiate its mineral sourcing claims, explaining that there is little evidence to support that Apple ethically sources the minerals used to manufacture its products. Citibank has "the largest foreign financial presence of any institution in Israel." Citibank is financing the IOF's weapons and funding the tech that Israel uses to surveil Palestinians.

It's imperative that the county not only divest from the companies above but thoroughly investigate all of its current and future holdings. Multnomah County must inform constituents how it determines its future holding with a clear and public metric.

We demand that Multnomah County:

1. Immediately begin migrating all data from Amazon Web Services to ethical alternatives.
2. Divest entirely from Amazon and any corporations complicit in human rights violations or antithetical to the County’s stated values.
3. Withdraw from the OSTF, which supports financial institutions that fund ICE detention centers and private prisons.
4. Create a public reinvestment plan with community oversight to ensure that County investments align with values of justice, equity, and sustainability.
5. Publicly encourage the Oregon State Treasury and other institutions to join in ethical divestment.