Tacoma ICE center ordered to pay detainee workers Washington’s minimum wage, $23 million in arrears

A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that people held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center must be paid the state’s minimum wage for doing any work around the facility.

Detainees at the Tacoma facility have done jobs like preparing food, scrubbing showers, and clearing floors.

The private, for-profit GEO Group, which runs the facility, paid detainees $1 a day until a lawsuit in 2017 challenged that. Now the group must pay detained workers Washington’s minimum wage — and $23.2 million to former detainees in back pay.

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“GEO’s contract with ICE explicitly requires it to comply with ‘state labor laws and codes.’ The contract does not exclude minimum wage laws from its definition of state labor laws and codes,” Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William Fletcher wrote in Thursday’s decision.

GEO Group Spokesperson Christopher Ferreira said the company still believes that detainees who do work for them are not employees, and plans to appeal the ruling. The federal contractor has argued that its practice of paying detainees $1 a day is protected under the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which establishes that federal law supersedes state law when the two are in conflict.

“For-profit businesses in Washington must all follow the same rule — if you employ workers, you must pay them fairly,” said state Attorney General Nick Brown in a statement.

“The appeals court today confirmed that companies that break our state laws will be held accountable,” Brown added.

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Thursday’s decision has been a long time coming for detainees, said Aaron Korthuis with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

“This can and should be considered a great victory because it recognizes the rights that people have to be paid a wage that allows them to afford and provide for themselves inside the detention center,” Korthuis said.

In the backdrop, GEO Group's stock reached an all-time high this week at $34.96, raising the company's value to $4.73 billion as of Friday afternoon.