A top private prison company profiting from President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is claiming immunity from lawsuits alleging forced labor at its detention centers. To do so, the company is using a controversial legal doctrine best known for shielding cops from police brutality claims.
The prison contractor, GEO Group, is one of the world’s largest prison companies and a long-time Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contractor. The prison firm has been a generous donor to the Trump administration, and its work for ICE has expanded significantly over the last year and a half. The company operates detention facilities for ICE across the country, many of which have long histories of abuse allegations.
In 2014, immigrants detained in a GEO Group-run ICE facility in Colorado sued the company for violating state labor and trafficking laws. The detainees alleged that the facility’s work program paid only $1 a day, and in some cases, they were forced to clean the facility without pay at all. For more than a decade, GEO Group has avoided a trial in the case, but one is now scheduled for the fall in Colorado federal court.
