Private Prison Giant Ordered to Pay Tens Of Millions for Paying Immigrant Detainees $1 a Day For Work

A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that The GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison operator, must pay more than $23 million for paying working immigrant detainees at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma as little as $1 per day.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied The GEO Group's request to rehear the case or escalate it further, siding with lower courts that found the company violated Washington state minimum wage law.

The legal battle, ongoing since 2017, involves detainees at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, which GEO has run since 2005 under federal contracts exceeding $700 million, as the Washington State Standard explains. The center houses individuals detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who await their potential deportation or release.

Detainees formerly participated in a voluntary work program performing tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry, which allowed GEO to avoid hiring about 85 full-time employees. A U.S. District Court jury in 2021 awarded inmates nearly $17.3 million in back wages, with a federal judge adding $5.9 million in penalties.

The Washington state Supreme Court in 2023 affirmed that detainees should be treated as employees under state law. GEO argued that federal contractors could not be compelled to pay state minimum wage invoking the supremacy clause, but courts rejected this argument.

The ruling comes as The GEO Group continues to expand its federal contracts. The company reported $636.2 million in revenue in the second quarter of 2025, housing roughly 20,000 ICE detainees nationwide.

The company also stands to profit heavily thanks to ICE's Alternatives to Detention program, considering that its subsidiary BI Inc. provides GPS-enabled ankle monitors to migrants. ICE recently instructed staff to expand the program, potentially placing over 180,000 individuals under electronic supervision, a move that could generate additional revenue for GEO.

The Tacoma facility, the only private, for-profit detention center in Washington, has faced repeated scrutiny for labor practices and human rights concerns. Researchers with the University of Washington's Center for Human Rights have documented numerous health and safety issues at the immigration facility in recent years, including severe medical neglect, unsafe food, dirty water, the overuse of solitary confinement, sexual abuse and assaults and excessive uses of force.

"We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are serious abuses happening there, so where's the gap?" said Angelina Godoy, director of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, to The Seattle Times back in July.