ICE Detention Center Ordered To Pay Detainee Workers Minimum Wage

TACOMA, WA — A federal jury has ruled that GEO Group Inc., the for-profit operation behind the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, must pay detainee workers the state's minimum wage.

Previously, the processing center had paid detainee workers just $1 per day of labor. In some cases, employees were only paid with food instead of money for their work.

However, following a lawsuit brought by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a jury has decided that the company must pay its workers Washington’s minimum wage of $13.69 per hour, or more. According to the Attorney General's Office, it will now be up to U.S. District Court Judge Robert Bryan how much GEO illegally profited by underpaying workers over the past 15+ years — and how much it will owe the workers it cheated.

“This multi-billion dollar corporation illegally exploited the people it detains to line its own pockets,” Ferguson said. “Today’s victory sends a clear message: Washington will not tolerate corporations that get rich violating the rights of the people.”

Ferguson has requested that GEO be ordered to pay into a fund, which would be used to reimburse not only the detained immigrants exploited by GEO, but jobseekers in Tacoma who may have lost job opportunities because of GEO's choices. Bryan is expected to begin his evaluation sometime early next week.

Ferguson first filed the suit against GEO back in September 2017, alleging that the Northwest ICE Processing Center had been illegally underpaying immigrant detainees since it first opened in 2005. The center can house up to 1,575 detainees, and leaned on them to provide most of the work necessary to keep the facility running, the lawsuit alleges. Work done by employees included preparing and serving food, running laundry, providing haircuts and cleaning nearly the entire facility, the Attorney General's Office said.

As part of their investigation, the AGO says it heard from detainees who "described working through the night buffing floors and painting walls in exchange for chips and candy." In exchange for this unpaid labor, the center earned its owners more up to $57 million in revenue every year, according to GEO projections made in 2015.

Ultimately, the AGO says GEO simply violated Washington’s minimum wage laws.

"There are no exceptions for private, for-profit facilities like GEO’s facility," the agency said in a news release. "The people detained there are not criminals, nor part of a treatment or rehabilitation program. In contrast with a jail or prison, which house people involved in the criminal justice system and are operated by state or local governments, the detention center is a for-profit facility that houses people who are awaiting civil immigration proceedings."

Now that the state of Washington has won its portion of the case, beginning Thursday that same jury will hear an argument from private plaintiffs demanding millions of dollars in wages owed to workers from 2014 to the present day.