Kimberly Jones Merchant is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Justice.
“If the work that we do is considered radical, we wear it with pride,” she said. “I've explained in terms of the work that we do around expungement, giving people second chances after they have served their time.”
The Mississippi Center for Justice was started in 2003 as a non-profit public interest law firm to help low-income Mississippians and communities of color combat discrimination and poverty.
Jones Merchant says the White House misrepresented the use of funds the center received from the CFPB.
“What they're referencing is some work we did in 2017,” she said. “So first of all, it's old. But that was work wrapped around predatory lending. trying to reduce the interest rate or set an interest rate, regulate how much these companies can charge interest, which in some instances was more than 500% of the actual loan.”
Jones Merchant says the Center for Justice used the funds to teach people in the community financial literacy and establish relationships with banks in order to repair their credit and get fairer loans.
“Our project was an effort to protect consumers, and that can't be disputed,” she said.
The Center for Justice assisted undocumented immigrants after the 2019 ICE raids that arrested 680 workers from Mississippi poultry plants. Jones Merchant says money from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was not used for that initiative.
“We're a nonprofit. We have to file a 990 like everybody else. I'm very transparent, so there's no secret about where our funding comes from.”
Recently, the CFPB has dismissed several cases against financial institutions including Capitol One, which was alleged to have engaged in business practices that harmed consumers.
