By Jeanne Kuang
The private immigration detention company GEO Group has settled a landmark case over conditions in one of its Central Valley detention facilities. It has agreed to pay more than $100,000 over allegations the company failed to keep detained immigrants safe when they worked inside the facility.
The settlement, signed in May and announced last week, is a victory for immigrants’ rights groups that have pushed California lawmakers to attempt to regulate conditions inside the federal government’s privately-operated detention facilities.
Eight such facilities now operate across the state, and the number of detained immigrants has spiked during the second Trump presidency.
During the pandemic, lawmakers passed a measure allowing state inspectors into the facilities. In 2022, after receiving complaints from advocates and detained immigrants at the Golden State Annex facility in McFarland, state workplace safety inspectors from Cal/OSHA opened a case at the center and cited the GEO Group with workplace violations, alleging the company failed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among detainees who work there, and ensure other safety measures.
It was the first known time the state has treated immigrant detainees as workers and their detention facility operators as employers subject to state labor laws.
Immigrants held in ICE custody are detained on civil violations, not imprisoned for crimes. But in detention, where they can participate in a “voluntary work program” cleaning the facility, preparing food or cutting other detainees’ hair, they are only paid $1 a day. Detainees often participate in order to afford food at the centers’ commissaries or calls to their families.
As part of the settlement between GEO Group and Cal/OSHA, the company has agreed to improve its disease control plans for detainees and stopped fighting a ruling by state regulators last year that said the company was subject to state labor laws. GEO Group did not respond to a request for comment.
