“If eventually found liable, GEO may of course appeal,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court’s majority. “But GEO must wait until then.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against a private prison company that allegedly forces detained immigrants to work for as little as $1 per day.
According to PBS, the court’s unanimous ruling represents a procedural defeat for the GEO Group. However, it is not a final decision, and the litigation remains pending.
The GEO Group, adds PBS, is currently fighting a lawsuit alleging that migrants held at an Aurora, Colorado, facility were coerced into performing janitorial work and other poorly-compensated labor. In some cases, immigrants said that accepting these types of positions was the only way to supplement otherwise-meager food rations. Some also detainees say they were threatened with solitary confinement if and when they refused to participate in the work program.
Attorneys for the GEO Group have pushed back against the allegations.
The company argued that, because it is a government contractor, it is therefore entitled to immunity. A lower court has already ruled against the GEO Group, which quickly appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. The justices, though, declined to overturn the ruling or dismiss the case.
“If eventually found liable, GEO may of course appeal,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court’s majority. “But GEO must wait until then.”
“A valid defense leads to a judgment of non-liability,” Kagan wrote. “But it does not allow the defendant to escape the varied rigors and costs of legal proceedings.”
Colorado’s current minimum wage is $8 per hour. The lawsuit contends that, by providing meager food rations and paying detainees rates as low as $1 per day, GEO Group has violated statutes prohibiting forced labor.
POLITICO notes that about 1,200 detainees are currently held at GEO’s Aurora facility.
Jennifer Bennett, an attorney for the plaintiffs, has since applauded the court’s ruling.
“The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision reaffirms a straightforward rule: government contractors like GEO do not qualify for sovereign immunity and must follow the same ‘one case, one appeal’ principle that governs every other litigant,” Bennett said in a statement.
The GEO Group operates more than a dozen federal civil immigration detention centers across the United States. This is not the first time that the company has been accused of engaging in forced labor. Last year, in Washington state, a federal appeals court upheld a ruling requiring GEO to pay more than $23 million. In that case, GEO was instructed to pay $17.3 million for detainees who were paid $1 per day to cook, clean, perform repairs, and work at an in-facility barbershop and library. The company was also ordered to pay a separate $6 million award to the state.
Sources
GEO Group can’t nix $23 mln verdict over immigrant detainee pay
Supreme Court deals setback to ICE detention contractor in fight over detainee work
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