July 16, 2021
GEO Group Inc. has added prominent conservative lawyer Charles J. Cooper to its defense team for a retrial on claims that it paid detained immigrant workers just $1 per day, a proceeding slated to begin in October after a mistrial last month.
June 25, 2021
Washington state's attorney general asked a federal court Thursday to set retrial for as soon as possible in its suit over $1-a-day wages for detained immigrant workers, saying a recent mistrial shouldn't justify letting an ongoing injustice "linger without resolution."
June 17, 2021
A Washington federal judge ordered a mistrial Thursday after a jury deliberating for over two days could not agree on whether GEO Group wrongly denied minimum wage to thousands of detained immigrants paid $1 a day.
June 15, 2021
The state of Washington made its final argument to a jury Tuesday that GEO Group took advantage of detained immigrants as a captive workforce of nearly free labor because the private prison giant felt it was "answerable only to shareholders," not to state law.
June 14, 2021
GEO Group rested in a wage trial Monday after its compliance czar testified that although U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn't block it from paying detainees more than $1 a day, the private prison company feels federal approval would be necessary to make a "material change" in operations like paying them minimum wage.
June 11, 2021
GEO Group sought Friday to bolster its claim that Washington state's trial over immigrant wages at a detention center it runs is hypocritical, bringing a witness who testified that the state itself pays just a couple of dollars an hour for resident work at a different non-criminal commitment facility.
June 10, 2021
GEO Group began its trial defense Thursday in a class action claiming it grossly underpaid immigrants who filled important work shifts at a Washington Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detention facility, drawing numerous objections as it asked a state employee questions related to an email banned from trial in which she said detainees aren't eligible for minimum wage.
June 08, 2021
Jurors in a trial over $1 daily wages for ICE detainees heard Tuesday that site operator GEO Group listed detainees' work shifts as 'payroll' because that's how ICE kept track of things, not because the detainees were doing actual work subject to minimum-wage laws.
June 07, 2021
A former ICE detainee held in a GEO Group facility testified Monday that it didn't make sense that she was put to work doing laundry in the building after she had been detained for having no work authorization.
June 03, 2021
An immigrant who worked serving food to fellow ICE detainees while being held at a GEO Group facility testified Thursday that his work wasn't just volunteering, which doesn't fall under minimum-wage protections, and said if he hadn't been getting paid he would simply "read a book."