Article 14: Right to seek asylum from persecution
Necessary
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
The right to seek asylum is ultimately decided by government asylum officers, immigration judges and courts, so this is fundamentally a state obligation. But whether someone can effectively use that process depends heavily on private detention. Research from the American Immigration Council found detained immigrants get a lawyer only 14% of the time, versus two-thirds of those released. Having a lawyer while detained makes winning a case roughly ten times more likely. CoreCivic and GEO Group run most privately operated detention beds and have lobbied for years to keep a congressional 34,000-bed quota in place, feeding more people into a system where access to counsel is far weaker. Palantir's data and analytics work for DHS and ICE has separately drawn a 2026 shareholder proposal asking for a human rights impact assessment, backed by Norway's sovereign wealth fund. It won 56% support among non-insider shareholders but failed overall because founders control about half the voting power.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Whether a person can practically pursue an asylum claim depends heavily on whether they are held in for-profit detention. Nationally, only 14% of detained immigrants get a lawyer versus two-thirds of those not detained, and represented detained immigrants are roughly ten times more likely to win their case. Private detention operators' conditions and practices therefore shape real-world access to the right, even though the legal grant or denial of asylum is made by government adjudicators.
GEO Group and CoreCivic's lobbying to sustain the congressional immigration-detention bed quota keeps more asylum seekers in facilities where access to counsel collapses, which narrows practical access to the right, but it is not documented as blocking asylum law or the adjudication process itself.
2 and 1, higher of the two, gives Necessary
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Access to Counsel in Immigration Court, American Immigration Council, 2016-09-28
- Payoff: How Congress Ensures Private Prison Profit with an Immigrant Detention Quota, In the Public Interest, 2015
- Palantir Non-Insider Vote, a Resounding Victory, Investor Advocates for Social Justice, 2026-06
- Palantir Technologies Inc, Rule 14a-8 shareholder proposal, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2026
- Letter to Palantir Technologies Requesting Third-Party Human Rights Risk Assessment, NYC Comptroller's Office, 2026-02-04
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Filed the 2026 Palantir shareholder proposal asking for a human rights impact assessment of Palantir's products and services, including its DHS/ICE work; it won 56% of non-insider votes.
Palantir Non-Insider Vote, a Resounding Victory, Investor Advocates for Social Justice, 2026-06
Filed a related 2026 Palantir shareholder proposal asking for an independent report on due diligence over whether customers' use of its defense products contributes to human rights violations in conflict-affected areas.
Co-filed the 2026 Palantir shareholder proposal on human rights due diligence for defense-product customers, alongside Presbyterian Life & Witness.
2 campaigns on record
Commission an independent report on the due diligence process Palantir uses to evaluate whether customers' use of its defense products contributes to human rights violations in conflict-affected areas.
With Portico Benefit Services, Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate-US
Result: we found no documented final vote tally for this specific proposal in the sources reviewed, separate from the related proposal above.
we found no documented change in Palantir's due diligence process tied to this specific proposal in the sources reviewed.
Palantir Technologies Inc, Rule 14a-8 shareholder proposal, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Publish a human rights impact assessment examining the actual and potential human rights impacts of Palantir's products and services, including data and analytics work for DHS and ICE that affects migrants and asylum seekers.
Result: Won 56% of non-insider shareholder votes but only about 13% of the overall vote at the June 2026 annual meeting, because founders Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen and Peter Thiel control roughly half of total voting power through a three-class share structure.
we found no documented commitment by Palantir to conduct or publish the requested assessment.
Palantir Non-Insider Vote, a Resounding Victory, Investor Advocates for Social Justice
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Universal Declaration of Human Rights's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.