The attorney general of Washington State is suing those in charge of Tacoma’s Northwest Detention Center, saying that the for-profit company has violated minimum wage laws by paying $1 or less per day for immigrant detainees to work for them. Civil detainees awaiting deportation or immigration hearings are held in the detention center, which can house up to 1500 people, and is on the Tacoma Tideflats.
Attorney General, Bob Ferguson announced the lawsuit on Wednesday, saying the group that runs the center, GEO Group, has made millions of dollars by failing to pay detainees anything close to the minimum wage. Ferguson says that, while $1 was the most a worker received for a day’s work, sometimes they did not even get that, and were just given food and snacks as rewards for their labor.
The lawsuit, filed in Pierce County Superior Court, alleges that such violations have been ongoing since at least 2005, and Ferguson says they have been profiting from the illegal exploitation of workers. The lawsuit demands that GEO Group is forced to comply with the minimum wage laws of Washington State, and also wants them to surrender the profits made from underpaying their employees, a sum that Ferguson believes runs into millions of dollars.
GEO Group, which holds a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, strongly refutes the allegations in the lawsuit, calling them meritless and baseless, and says that its volunteer work program meets the federal government’s own standards.