Attorneys for immigrants detained at the Aurora Detention Facility have reached a proposed settlement with GEO Group in a class-action lawsuit alleging the company forced detainees to work for as little as $1 a day. The agreement's terms have not been disclosed and still require approval from a federal judge before it can take effect.
The case, known as Menocal v. GEO Group, traces back to a lawsuit filed more than a decade before the settlement was announced, according to Colorado Public Radio. Plaintiffs say it concerns thousands of detained immigrants who were allegedly compelled to perform hard labor for $1 a day while held at the Aurora facility, which GEO Group operates as part of its business running prisons and immigration detention centers across the country. The plaintiffs were detained at the facility between 2004 and 2014.
Named plaintiff Alejandro Menocal was held at the Aurora facility for three months during the summer of 2014, and he claims he was forced to work for just $1 per day during that stretch, according to Courthouse News Service. Per the same outlet's reporting on the case, Menocal said he was compelled to perform hard labor for that $1-a-day wage or risk being placed in solitary confinement. He filed the lawsuit on behalf of immigrants detained at the Adams County facility, claiming GEO Group unjustly enriched itself by running detention, food, janitorial and laundry services at minimal cost.
What the Lawsuit Alleged
Court records describe the work at issue as including cleaning of private and common areas of the facility, done without compensation and under the threat of solitary confinement and other punishments, according to the opinion filed with courtlistener.com. The lawsuit was originally filed October 22, 2014, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, per the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Plaintiffs brought claims under the forced-labor provision of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and for unjust enrichment, after a separate Colorado minimum-wage claim in the case was dismissed.
GEO Group has argued that, as a federal contractor, it could not be held accountable under laws applicable to the government itself. The company has said it was simply following directives from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Congress, which told contractors to implement a voluntary work program paying no less than $1 a day, the Courthouse News Service report notes. A 2022 district court filing states that over the relevant period, GEO paid participants in its Voluntary Work Program at the facility $1.00 per day, though the same ruling found GEO could not escape liability on immunity grounds because it was not complying with a federal directive or contractual requirement capping pay at that rate.
A Supreme Court Detour Before Trial
The case nearly went to trial this week. Selection for an advisory jury began Monday, before the proposed settlement emerged; opening statements had been expected Tuesday. That timeline followed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed Menocal to proceed with his claims by a 9-0 vote, according to the article. The justices held that the so-called Yearsley doctrine offers GEO Group only a potential defense to liability, not blanket immunity from suit, and that a denial of that protection could not be immediately appealed before trial, per the U.S. Supreme Court opinion. As Colorado Newsline reported at the time, the ruling was procedural — it cleared the way for the case to move toward trial or settlement without resolving whether GEO actually violated forced-labor law.
Seligman, who runs the advocacy law firm Towards Justice, said GEO cuts costs and earns billions of taxpayer dollars annually, alleging that labor exploitation has been part of how the company does it.
Part of a Wider Pattern at ICE Contractors
The Aurora case is not the only forced-labor fight GEO Group has faced. The company manages 16 ICE detention facilities nationwide and has faced similar lawsuits in California and Colorado, according to ProPublica. At a GEO-run ICE facility in Tacoma, Washington, detainees once prepared meals, washed laundry and scrubbed toilets — work that would otherwise require 85 full-time employees — for $1 a day, and a federal jury there ultimately ruled in favor of Washington state in its minimum-wage case against the company. The Washington State Attorney General's office has said the Ninth Circuit affirmed findings that GEO's $1-a-day work program at the Northwest ICE Processing Center violated labor law, though that claim carries lower confidence in available reporting.
Back in Aurora, the specifics of the GEO settlement — including any dollar figure, how it would be distributed, or whether it changes the company's work program going forward — remain unknown pending the judge's review. The story is still developing and will be updated as more information becomes available.
