Washington state's politicized, unconstitutional lawsuit against the GEO Group | Legal Newsline
By: Legal Newsline
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In early November, United States District Judge Robert Bryan ruled that the GEO Group must pay $5.9 million to the State of Washington following a trial on whether GEO's detainee work program violated state laws. This was in addition to the $17.3 million a jury had awarded to more than 10,000 individuals detained at the Tacoma Detention Center for being in the country illegally.
To read the press coverage, you would think that this was the case of a big corporation taking advantage of workers. The reality is far different.
In truth, GEO Group was paying the detainees pursuant to a federal program run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Voluntary Work Program had been in existence since 2005 and was a contractual requirement between the Tacoma Detention Center and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The program requires detention centers to pay illegals detained in the facilities one dollar per day to perform certain kitchen, janitorial, and laundry work that last less than two hours, with the goal to reduce idleness and promote good order.
It is a fully voluntary program and has been run without issue under both Republican and Democrat administrations. Strange then that it took until 2017, after Donald Trump had been elected and started enforcing immigration laws, that the State of Washington would sue under the theory that the detainees were "employees" under Washington law.
Further, in an analogous case in the Fourth Circuit, a unanimous court affirmed a District Court ruling that found that detainees who volunteer to participate in the Voluntary Work Program were not employees and were not owed wages under either federal or state law.
The ruling against GEO raises significant questions if allowed to stand. For example, would individuals detained for illegally entering this country now be treated as employees for the purposes of unemployment benefits? Will they pay into Social Security? Will they have to pay taxes on their earnings? I reached out to the Washington Attorney General's Office for comment and have not received a response as of this writing.
After the ruling, GEO appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but in a surprise twist, the Biden Department of Justice filed a Statement of Interest with the court "to address an aggressive and legally unjustified effort by the State of Washington to interfere with federal immigration enforcement." According to the DOJ's statement, the ruling "is a quintessential violation of intergovernmental immunity principles."
The question now becomes whether the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will follow the 4th Circuit and see the massive legal flaws in the verdict and reverse the ruling. If they choose not to, the slip in circuits may ultimately lead to the United States Supreme Court.
In any event, the policy implications of this ruling are disastrous. ICE simply does not have sufficient facilities to handle all the illegal aliens that are detained, and therefore must contract with private facilities like GEO Group. As stated, part of the contract requires compliance with the Voluntary Work Program and if those detainees are paid minimum wage, it would likely require detention centers to lay off employees. This would transform detention centers into employment centers for detainees, putting others out of work in the process.
Further, the questions of whether detainees pay taxes, are eligible for unemployment, or pay into federal entitlement programs create so many more legal and political issues, that it would make more sense just to scrap the voluntary work program altogether.
While scathing editorials from left-leaning local media outlets applaud the decision, the realities of the decision are that it will make immigration enforcement even harder than it already is.
Perhaps that is the real reason for the action by the Washington Attorney General.
Ian Prior is former principal deputy director of Public Affairs for the Department of Justice.
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Just another way to aid illegal immigrants, turn the inmates into employees...