A federal jury has ordered the administrators of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Washington state to pay minimum wage to undocumented persons who perform tasks such as cooking or cleaning. facilities instead of just a dollar a day as they did until now.
GEO Group, an investment fund that runs prisons and mental health centers, and which has been repeatedly questioned for the treatment of detained migrants, was accused of unfairly profiting by exploiting undocumented immigrants at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, which is now known as ICE's Northwest Processing Center.
"This multibillion dollar corporation illegally exploited the people it detains to line its pockets
," Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press news agency.
["In migration I suffered a lot": this girl traveled more than 6,500 miles to meet her mother again]
Immigrants detained in downtown Tacoma, Washington, were cleaning and cooking for a dollar a day.Ted S. Warren / AP
The detention center houses people who are in custody while the federal government processes their deportations or reviews their immigration status.
It has
a capacity of up to 1,575 beds, making it one of the largest in the country
.
The sentence issued this Wednesday "sends a clear message: Washington will not tolerate that corporations that enrich themselves violate the rights of the people," said the prosecutor.
It was the second trial for this complaint, since in the first the jury ended without reaching a verdict.
["I would not wish it even on my worst enemy": retaliation against migrants who started hunger strikes at ICE centers]
The jury must now determine
how much immigrants are owed for their work
, an amount that can be millionaire since the minimum wage that has been ordered to pay is $ 13.69 per hour and they only received one dollar a day.
Immigrants report sexual abuse in Florida detention center
Aug. 30, 202102: 07
The undocumented who remain in the center have gone on several hunger strikes to protest the miserable and dangerous conditions in which they live, including several outbreaks of COVID-19.
GEO maintained that the detainees were not employees under the Washington Minimum Wage Law.
Even if they were, the company said, it would be illegally discriminatory for them to be required to pay the minimum wage when the state does not pay that value to inmates working in its own prisons or other detention facilities.
A payment to get rich at the expense of immigrants
District Judge Robert Bryan will determine what GEO Group must pay Washington for the lawsuit filed by the state accusing the company of unjustly enriching itself.
Immigrants report being given rotten food and stinking water in an ICE detention center
June 22, 202102: 21
Ferguson, a Democrat, sued the Florida-based GEO Group in 2017. The attorney general said he will put any money awarded to the state
into a fund to benefit detainees, as well as area residents
who may have been deprived of possible jobs in jail.
Why They Can Charge More Than State Prisoners
The definition of “employee” in Washington's minimum wage law is broad: it includes anyone that an employer allows to work, regardless of their immigration or legal employment status.
The law says that residents of a “state, county or municipal” detention facility are not entitled to minimum wage for the work they do.
But the Tacoma detention center does not fit into that exemption because it is a private, for-profit facility, attorneys for the state and detainees argued.
[The Government investigates cases of physical and sexual abuse in juvenile detention centers in Texas]
A detainee walks down a hallway during a media tour at the detention center in Tacoma, Washington.Ted S. Warren / AP
During the first trial,
GEO recognized that it could pay detainees more if it wanted to
.
In 2018, the company made $ 18.6 million in profits from the center.
It would have cost him $ 3.4 million to pay the minimum wage to the detainees.
Washington is not alone in suing a private detention contractor
for exploiting immigrants.
Similar lawsuits have been filed on behalf of detained immigrants in other states, including New Mexico, Colorado and California, to force GEO and another major private detention company, CoreCivic, to pay minimum wage to detainees.
A federal judge rejected a similar lawsuit brought by former detainees from CoreCivic's Cibola center in New Mexico.
