Seventh Circuit Revives Detained Migrants’ Forced-Labor Suit

The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit revived a proposed class suit claiming civil immigration detainees were illegally forced to do custodial work in a Wisconsin jail.

Nothing in the relevant statute “permits a local jail to compel civil detainees—persons not subject to punishment—to work on pain of solitary confinement or loss of phone contact with the outside world,” Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote in Friday’s opinion.

The opinion, joined by Chief Judge Michael Brennan and Judge Diane Sykes, vacates the decision of a Wisconsin federal judge who dismissed the case on grounds the plaintiffs had sued under ...