GEO Group Fights for Immunity From $1-a-Day Detainee Labor Suit

GEO Group Inc., faced with allegations that making immigrant detainees labor in the company’s civil detention centers constitutes human trafficking, will attempt to convince the Tenth Circuit on Monday to revive its defense of derivative sovereign immunity.

The private prison corporation’s contracts with the federal government set the daily minimum pay for its voluntary work program and require that detainees keep their own living quarters clean or face discipline, so GEO is entitled to assert its claim of derivative sovereign immunity, shielding it from liability, according to a brief the company filed with the US Court of Appeals for ...