GEO Group has agreed to pay $104,510 to settle California workplace-safety citations tied to its Golden State Annex immigration detention facility in McFarland, resolving a case built on allegations that detained immigrants cleaned the building for $1 a day without proper protective gear or training. The settlement marks what multiple sources describe as the first known instance of California labor protections being applied to immigrant detainees and the private company that holds them.
The case traces back to 2022, when Cal/OSHA opened an investigation at Golden State Annex after complaints from advocates and detained immigrants, according to CalMatters. Inspectors ultimately cited GEO Group for workplace violations, alleging the company failed to prevent COVID-19 spread among detainees who worked there and failed to ensure other safety measures. Detainees who cleaned the facility for $1 per day said they lacked proper protective equipment and training, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
According to that same account, detainees alleged they routinely wiped black mold off shower walls, encountered black dust coming from air vents, and used cleaning chemicals without proper instructions during the pandemic. The voluntary work program at Golden State Annex also includes food preparation and cutting other detainees’ hair, per Criminal Justice Journalism, which notes participants are paid the same $1-a-day rate across those tasks. Detainees often take part in the program to afford commissary food or phone calls to their families.
A First-of-Its-Kind Legal Determination
Central to the settlement is a ruling from California’s Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board, which found that detainees participating in the work program should be considered affected employees, the Los Angeles Times reported. That designation allowed state regulators to treat immigrant detainees as workers and the facility’s operator as an employer subject to state labor laws — a first, according to the dossier of reporting on the case. GEO Group stopped contesting that ruling last year, the same report noted, after initially fighting the determination.
As part of the settlement, GEO Group agreed to improve its disease-control plans for detainees and must now supply detained workers with the tools, equipment and personal protective equipment required to do their jobs safely, according to the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. The organization notes the fix reaches well beyond one facility: GEO must also draft plans for avoiding aerosol transmissions at 12 secure and reentry facilities, and the settlement specifically covers five ICE-contracted sites — Adelanto, Desert View Annex, Mesa Verde, Golden State Annex and Central Valley Annex. CalMatters was careful to note that the settlement resolves the citations rather than dropping them.
Pattern of Unrest at GEO-Run Sites
This is not the first time conditions at Golden State Annex have drawn scrutiny. Detainees there and at the nearby Mesa Verde facility, both operated by GEO Group, launched their second labor and hunger strike in two years over working and living conditions, CalMatters reported in earlier coverage. ICE pays GEO Group to hold as many as 880 immigrants across those two facilities combined, according to the outlet. The pressure comes as the number of detained immigrants in California has increased during the second Trump presidency, with eight privately operated immigration detention facilities now running statewide, per CalMatters.
KGET 17 News reported Cal/OSHA’s position that detainees in these work programs have enforceable worker rights and covered the $104,510 settlement, according to KGET 17 News. Immigrants held in ICE custody are detained for civil violations rather than crimes, a distinction that has fueled years of attempts by California lawmakers to regulate conditions inside privately operated federal detention facilities, including a pandemic-era measure allowing state inspectors into the centers.
A Wider Pattern Across California Facilities
Golden State Annex is not the only privately run detention center facing outside scrutiny. A federal judge recently ordered the Department of Homeland Security and contractor CoreCivic to allow a San Diego County inspector into the 1,400-bed Otay Mesa Detention Center near the Mexico border, according to Criminal Justice Journalism. CoreCivic has since sold Otay Mesa and another facility in Kern County to the federal government, the outlet reported, underscoring how ownership and oversight of California’s detention infrastructure keep shifting even as enforcement actions mount.
Per News From The States, GEO Group and Cal/OSHA signed the settlement in May 2026, and the deal was characterized as a victory for immigrants’ rights groups when it became public. GEO Group did not respond to a request for comment, the outlet reported. The publication later updated its reporting with a statement from Cal/OSHA and corrected settlement terms, clarifying that the agreement resolves — rather than dismisses — the underlying citations.
The resolution lands amid broader federal moves affecting detainee labor nationwide. GEO Group secured an update to ICE’s detention contractor standards that states detainees are not entitled to wages or benefits under applicable wage laws or labor regulations, a provision that sits in direct tension with California’s approach of treating detained workers as employees under state law. That contrast leaves open how far the state’s labor protections can reach as the two frameworks continue to collide.
