$1-a-Day Work Program for Immigrant Detainees Heads to Trial (1)

The operator of an immigrant detention center in Washington state can’t get out of a lawsuit over its practice of paying detainees $1 a day under a work program that’s supposed to be voluntary.

The case is one of a handful challenging the program, which is run at immigrant detention centers operated both by the GEO Group and CoreCivic, the country’s largest operators of private prison and detention facilities. The Voluntary Work Program, developed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is run by the companies under contracts with ICE.

Under the program, detainee volunteers perform tasks such as collecting and ...