SEATTLE — A federal jury is deciding whether one of the nation’s biggest private prison companies must pay minimum wage instead of $1 a day to immigration detainees who perform tasks like cooking and cleaning at its jail in Washington state.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued the GEO Group in 2017, saying the company had unjustly profited by running the Northwest detention center in Tacoma on the backs of captive workers.
A separate lawsuit filed on behalf of detainees was also filed that year, seeking back pay. GEO says the detainees simply are not employees and are not entitled to the minimum wage.