TACOMA, Wash. (Legal Newsline) - A jury of eight heard opening arguments Wednesday in the state’s case against a privately operated federal detention facility, centering on whether the illegal aliens housed there should be treated as employees and paid minimum wage of $13.47 per hour for maintenance tasks.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued The GEO Group in 2017. His lawsuit claims that tasks the detainees perform are essential, and that GEO is unjustly enriched by relying on its volunteer work program to operate the Tacoma facility.
The trial taking place before District Judge Robert J. Bryan is a second effort; the first proceeding was tried via Zoom, but ended in a mistrial.
In its defense, GEO argued that its volunteer work program is approved by Congress, administered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and has been in place for 12 years. The program, GEO's attorney said, allows for detainees to be paid $1 per task per day for janitorial, kitchen, laundry and barbershop tasks. Funds are paid by GEO to the detainees, and ICE reimburses GEO for those payments, GEO argued.
On its unjust enrichment claim, the state argued that GEO would be required to hire and pay 85 full time employees for that work, thus reducing the company’s bottom line. According to the state, GEO was benefiting by utilizing the detainees as employees without having to pay them as employees. Consequently, the state argued that detainees should be treated as employees under Washington labor law and be paid minimum wage.
The attorney for GEO countered that detainees are housed at the direction of ICE and the federal judiciary. The facility is required to implement ICE’s volunteer program, which has the purpose of reducing idleness, improving morale, and improving the quality of services at the detention facility. Further, GEO is required to administer the program within the guidelines and may not exceed amount budgeted for the program without express authorization from ICE, its lawyer said.
GEO stressed repeatedly that the case is about just one question – whether the illegal aliens held at the detention center run by GEO are employees of GEO. With respect to the state’s claim that GEO’s contract with ICE requires it to comply with all applicable state labor laws, GEO said those laws are not applicable because detainees are not employees, but rather detained illegal aliens who are given the opportunity to take part in ICE’s volunteer program.
GEO’s attorney went on to question the motives of the state. Specifically, he stated that over the past 12 years that the program has been in place, the Washington State Department of Labor had never notified GEO that detainees were employees, despite knowledge of the program's existence. The implication, though not explicitly stated, was that this litigation was motivated by politics.
GEO’s attorney stressed that while the detention facility was not a utopia, detainees were safe, had access to books, tablets, and flat screen televisions, received three healthy meals per day, round the clock health care provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, and even had an AstroTurf soccer field for athletics.
Both sides stressed to the jury that the case was not about immigration politics or border policies.