Detained Immigrants Do $1-a-Day Labour. New US Rules Say No Wage Is Owed
Migration
Key Facts
—The pay. Detained immigrants who clean, cook or cut hair inside the centres receive one dollar a day.
—The verdict. A federal jury decided in 2021 that GEO Group owed $17 million in back wages.
—The settlement. The company will pay more than $100,000 to California’s workplace-safety regulator.
—The rewrite. New ICE standards say detainees are not entitled to wages or benefits.
—The sequence. Those standards changed after GEO Group proposed wording changes, the Washington Post reported.
—The status. People held by ICE are detained for civil infractions rather than crimes.
A federal jury once put a price on detainee labour in American immigration centres, ruling that a private contractor owed seventeen million dollars in unpaid wages, and this June the agency that hires that contractor rewrote its own rules to say no wage is owed.
The people doing the work are immigrants waiting on deportation cases and asylum claims. They are held for civil infractions rather than crimes.
Inside, they may volunteer to clean the facility, prepare meals or cut other detainees’ hair. The pay is a dollar a day.
The population is large. More than seventy-three thousand people were held earlier this year, a record since the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2001, and roughly sixty thousand remained in custody last month.
Eight such centres operate in California alone. The number of detained immigrants has climbed sharply during the current presidency.
What a dollar a day buys
People join the work programme to buy food at the commissary or to afford a phone call home. As CalMatters reports, that is the practical reason detainees sign up.
Ever Oropeza-Paz, held at one California facility, told the outlet that people are obliged to work, and that they do it only to have money for a quick call to relatives. That is his description, not a legal finding.
Put the figure against a wage. When Washington State sued in 2017 its minimum wage stood at eleven dollars an hour.
On our own arithmetic a dollar buys about five and a half minutes at that rate. A full eight-hour shift would be eighty-eight dollars.
Courts have already weighed detainee labour
The question has been litigated before. Washington’s attorney general and a group of detainees sued GEO Group in 2017, arguing the state minimum wage should have applied.
In 2021 a federal jury agreed, finding the company owed seventeen million dollars in back wages to hundreds of immigrants who had cooked and cleaned. A year later a federal judge examining the programme at another Californian centre held that detainees should count as employees.
His reasoning was narrow and practical. The contractor paid them, set their hours, and dictated their working conditions.
GEO Group disputes the characterisation. It says the programmes are voluntary, authorised by the federal government, and not a traditional employment relationship.
The rule that arrived in June
In June the immigration agency updated its national detention standards. People in custody are not employees, the new text says, and are not entitled to wages or benefits under applicable labour law.
The document also removed earlier language noting that detainees could receive at least a dollar a day for certain tasks. The agency said the update responded to stakeholder feedback and would reduce the burden on facility operators.
The Washington Post reported the sequence that produced it. GEO Group proposed modifications to the wording of the federal regulations, and the changes followed.
The same investigation noted that two figures in the administration’s immigration policy, Tom Homan, described in the reporting as the administration’s border czar, and the acting agency director David Venturella, previously worked for the company.
This week’s settlement
On Tuesday California announced that GEO Group will pay more than a hundred thousand dollars over allegations it failed to keep detained immigrants safe while they worked. The agreement was signed in May.
A settlement is not an admission of liability. The company did, however, stop contesting a state ruling that it falls under California labour law, and agreed to improve its disease-control plans.
The state will withdraw its citations. Neither the company nor the regulator answered requests for comment.
Detainees have organised on their own account. Those at two facilities in the same county began a second labour and hunger strike in two years, CalMatters reported in 2024, over living and working conditions.
The region is closely tied to this system. Eight Latin American and Caribbean governments have signed asylum cooperation or safe third country agreements with Washington, according to this newspaper’s own reporting on the administration’s regional policy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why should Latin American readers care?
Because eight governments in the region have signed asylum or deportation cooperation agreements with Washington, and because the question of whether a detained person has labour rights is being settled now, in American courts and agency documents, with little attention south of the border.
Is the work programme voluntary?
GEO Group says it is, and the federal government authorises it. Detainees interviewed by CalMatters describe joining to buy commissary food or call home, and in one 2022 case a federal judge held that detainees at a particular facility should count as employees.
What happens to the detainee labour lawsuits?
That is the open question. The new standards state that detainees are not owed wages, while several minimum-wage cases against the contractor remain live in different states, and a jury has already found otherwise once.
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