Thousands of detainees earned $1 a day for washing, cleaning bathrooms, and other jobs at facilities run by the GEO Group in Washington state, a company contracted by the government.
The GEO Group was registering millions of dollars in profits at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, so a federal jury in the U.S. District Court made an extraordinary decision that GEO Group should begin providing 1,441,730 retroactive payments to more than 10,000 former and current detainees.
In addition to the jury's decision, Federal Judge Bryan issued a court order requiring the company to pay the state minimum wage ($13.69) to detainees participating in the Voluntary Worker Program going forward.
The legal measures employed by the jury and Judge Bryan were based on the following arguments: “Detained immigrants are not criminals. In the U.S., people who have been convicted of a crime are exempt from state labor laws while incarcerated. In contrast, immigrants, who are detained while awaiting civil proceedings to determine whether they can remain in the U.S., fall into a different category and are therefore entitled to minimum wage for their work.”