"Detainees who earned just $1 a day are owed $17 million in back pay, a jury says", 30 October 2021

A federal jury in Tacoma, Wash., says the GEO Group, which owns and runs a large detention center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, owes former detainees $17.3 million in back pay for tasks such as cleaning and cooking meals.

The...company paid detainees $1 a day for such work, a practice the jury determined earlier this week is a violation of the state's minimum wage law...

One former detainee...says he was detained...for eight months...as he waited for his asylum claim to be processed. During that time he cleaned showers for a dollar a day. He says the GEO Group didn't force people to do such work, but he saw little choice.

"You have to do it, to get the money to get the stuff you need, or also make a call to your friends and family members," Nwauzor told NPR...

The class action was consolidated with a separate lawsuit brought by the state of Washington, which accused the GEO Group of violating state labor law and enriching itself unjustly.

The GEO Group argued that the detainees were not employees under Washington law, and that the state itself pays less than minimum wage to prisoners in its corrections facilities. The state minimum wage law exempts people living in "state, county or municipal" detention facilities. The Tacoma site is federal, and owned by a private company...

The company did not respond to NPR's request for comment.

...about 10,000 former detainees are eligible to share the back pay...