Tacoma ICE Detention Center To Pay WA $4.5M In Attorney Fees

TACOMA, WA — GEO Group Inc., the for-profit operation behind the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, has been ordered by a federal judge to repay the Washington Attorney General's Office nearly $4.5 million in attorneys' fees, following a lawsuit in which GEO was found guilty of underpaying and exploiting detainee workers.

Back in October, a federal jury ruled that the Northwest ICE Processing Center's practice of paying detainee workers just $1 per day of labor broke Washington minimum wage laws— and that those detainees should have been earning the state's minimum wage of $13.69 per hour, or more. GEO was then ordered to pay out a combined $23.2 million to reimburse thousands of people detained at the Northwest ICE Processing Center.

“This is a landmark victory for workers’ rights and basic human dignity,” Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said.

Now, a trial court has tacked on some additional charges for the GEO Group, ordering it to pay Washington state $4,462,402.05 in attorneys’ fees and $191,398.07 in other costs.

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 alleged. 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."