COMEUPPANCE

Private Prison Must Pay ICE Detainees $17M for $1-a-Day Work

Some detainees say they weren’t paid at all or were just given candy.

A federal jury has found that private prison company GEO Group owes thousands of immigrant detainees $17.3 million for violating minimum wage laws. The detainees were paid as little as $1 a day—or just given candy—for jobs like cleaning disgusting showers that were used by 50 or 60 men each day at an ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. The Washington Post reports that the actual payouts will range from $7 for one day of work to $30,000 for one detainee. The GEO Group argued that the workers weren’t actually “employees” who were entitled to minimum wage but participants in a “voluntary work program” it had to provide. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who filed the lawsuit, said in a statement that “Washington will not tolerate corporations that get rich violating the rights of the people.”