ICE Removed Detainee Protections as Favor to Top Contractor
NEWS & RESEARCH
Geo Group, the private prison company that has become "a one-stop shop for President Trump's mass deportation agenda" and operates nearly two dozen ICE detention centers nationwide, asked US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to remove language from its policies requiring contractors like Geo Group to follow state and local laws. The company also requested that ICE strike language mandating that contractors pay detainees at least $1 a day for their labor—work that includes scrubbing toilets, preparing meals, washing laundry, and other tasks that would otherwise require Geo Group to hire more full-time staff to maintain its facilities. Shortly after receiving the request, ICE posted new detention standards to its website and applied both changes, stating that detainees are not entitled to any form of wages. The move comes in the wake of three lawsuits against Geo Group, with states alleging that the company is violating minimum-wage and anti-forced-labor laws by paying just $1 a day for detainee work. Critics worry about a potential conflict of interest: Geo Group and its subsidiaries have donated millions of dollars to Donald Trump's campaign and inaugural fund, and ICE's acting director, David Venturella, previously worked for the company for 12 years—prompting Senator Elizabeth Warren to question "whether ICE enforcement priorities are being driven by the financial interests of politically connected detention contractors."
SOURCES: Washington Post | NPR | ProPublica | The Independent | HuffPost
ANALYSIS & OPINION
The new standards effectively gut protections designed to ensure basic labor protections in detention facilities, making it easier for contractors like Geo Group to avoid lawsuits and sidestep accountability under state and local laws. The consequences for detainees could be severe: A former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ombudsman who oversaw migrant detention practices said the revised standards are "100 percent" sure to "result in deterioration of already problematic conditions of detention." Compounding the concern is how these changes came about: ICE adopted them without holding a public comment period, the standard process that allows advocacy groups and other members of the public to weigh in on federal policy changes before they take effect. That lack of transparency, paired with Geo Group's documented influence over the rulemaking, raises serious questions about whose interests are actually being served—and points to a deeper pattern of cronyism between the agency and its top contractor. As Scott Shuchart, a former assistant director for regulatory affairs and policy at ICE, put it: "When Geo comes in for a meeting, it feels like a fraternity reunion...they are absolutely hand in glove." Whether the revised standards will help Geo Group in its existing legal battles remains to be seen, as Northwestern's Deportation Research Clinic says Geo Group still has a long road ahead, because "Federal law and state laws define employees broadly as people who work for pay, and ICE cannot override those laws by changing its contractual standards."
SOURCES: AP | Washington Post | NPR | Raw Story
HOW TO FIX IT
Federal action:
Pass a DHS/ICE version of the Department of Defense Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act, which bars Pentagon officials from participating in matters affecting the financial interests of a former employer for four years. A DHS/ICE equivalent would make binding what Sen. Elizabeth Warren has so far only been able to request: She's called on Venturella to recuse himself from matters involving Geo Group, where he worked as recently as 2024.
Pass a bill closing the loophole that allowed ICE to bypass the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which requires a public comment period before new federal regulations take effect. ICE sidestepped that process by classifying the new standards as contract terms rather than regulations, which are exempt from the APA. The legislation could be modeled on the Richardson Waiver, a former Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) policy, that voluntarily gave up that exemption and subjected its contract rules to the public comment process.
Pass the Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act, which would require the president and vice president to disclose and divest financial conflicts, and require presidential appointees to recuse themselves from matters involving the president's financial conflicts that come before their agencies.
Add an amendment or companion bill to the Fair Wages for Incarcerated Workers Act, which would guarantee incarcerated and detained workers at least minimum wage. Additional text could explicitly extend that protection to migrant detainees.
Litigation:
The State of Washington and a class of detainees sued GEO Group (Nwauzor/Washington v. GEO Group), alleging that GEO's $1-a-day pay violated the state's minimum wage law. A jury ruled unanimously in their favor, noting that state minimum wage laws are routinely applied to federal contractors. GEO Group was ordered to pay $17 million in back wages — less than 1% of its 2024 revenue — but has vowed to appeal. California detainees filed a similar suit (Novoa v. GEO Group), currently on hold pending the outcome of the Washington case.
Alejandro Menocal, a man detained at a Geo Group facility in Colorado, sued the company in a class action (Geo Group, Inc. v. Menocal) on behalf of every detainee held there over the past decade. Menocal argues that Geo Group's use of $1-a-day detainee labor amounts to forced labor under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act. The case is still pending.
Legislation: S.1486 - Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act | S.4143 - Fair Wages for Incarcerated Workers Act
