From The Bookshelves: When McKinsey Comes to Town by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe

When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World’s Most Powerful Consulting Firm is a 2022 book by investigative journalists Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe. As the official pitch states: “McKinsey… asserts that its role is to make the world a better place, and its reputation for excellence and discretion attracts top talent from universities around the world. But what does it actually do?”

Chapter 4 of the book–McKinsey at ICE–should send immprofs to their libraries for this compelling read.

The central focus of the chapter is the December 4, 2019 reporting by ProPublica in the New York Times: How McKinsey Helped the Trump Administration Carry Out Its Immigration Policies.

For the core allegations regarding McKinsey and ICE, you can just access the NYT piece. (It’s online after all, and to get to the book, you’ll need your library.) Here’s the absolute kicker from that 2019 reporting: McKinsey gave ICE “money-saving recommendations” including “proposed cuts in spending on food for migrants, as well as on medical care and supervision of detainees.”

Now, here’s something from the chapter that you won’t get from the article itself: McKinsey fought back against the NYT piece by PAYING GOOGLE TO RANK ITS RESPONSE ABOVE THE ARTICLE ON WEB SEARCHES. Color me naive, I didn’t know that was a thing you could do.

The chapter presents a scathing story of how McKinsey execs–and the ICE-specific McKinsey group–presented their work to colleagues within the firm who were horrified to learn about the company’s entanglement with ICE. When there was an internal call to withdraw from this work–along with a call from hundreds of McKinsey employees to give back any part of their paychecks attributable to the work for ICE–the head of the ICE work responded by staying he was “hurt” by the “inaccurate portrayals” of the group’s work.

When I was graduating from college, landing an entry level gig at McKinsey was really making it. Never been gladder that I went to law school.

-KitJ