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Jury finds detained immigrants paid $1 a day for labor are owed $17.3 million in again pay.
A federal jury lately discovered that the GEO Group, a for-profit, multi-billion-dollar firm that operates detention amenities for immigrants all through the U.S., owes present and former immigrant detainees $17.3 million in again pay for work that detainees had been paid simply $1 a day to finish.
The Legal professional Basic in Washington introduced the lawsuit in 2017, arguing that GEO’s labor practices violated Washington’s minimal wage regulation and that the corporate unjustly enriched itself by failing to pay minimal wage. The lawsuit alleged that the GEO Group would pay detainees simply $1 a day to function many elements of the detention facility, akin to getting ready, cooking, and serving meals to detainees, working the laundry service, and cleansing the power. In some instances, detainees have been paid with potato chips or sweet in lieu of wages.
For its half, the GEO Group maintained that detainees aren’t thought-about “staff” below Washington regulation, and subsequently aren’t coated by the state minimal wage legal guidelines, which exempt these dwelling in state, county, or municipal detention amenities.
Information shops reported that the GEO Group made $18.6 million in income from certainly one of its detention amenities in Tacoma, Washington. And, in response to the court docket ruling discovering that GEO owed $17.3 million in again pay to detainees and one other $5.9 million to the State of Washington for unjustly enriching itself, the AP reported that GEO requested the decide to place the selections on maintain pending enchantment. GEO defined that whereas the personal firm had the cash “to pay the Judgments twenty occasions over,” it disagreed with the selections.
In Colorado, an analogous lawsuit difficult GEO Group’s follow of paying detainees simply $1 a day for labor is at present pending with the U.S. District Courtroom for the District of Colorado.
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