$1 a day for janitorial work? Supreme Court greenlights lawsuit against Colorado prison

All nine justices sided against GEO Group

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 on Feb. 25 that private prison company GEO Group cannot jump ahead and appeal a lower court decision before going to trial.

The ruling clears the way for a 2014 class-action lawsuit to move forward.

That lawsuit accuses GEO of forcing immigration detainees to work without pay, or for just $1 a day, at its facility in Aurora, Colo. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion for the court.

Detainees say the facility forced them to work

Former detainee Alejandro Menocal filed the lawsuit in 2014.

He and other detainees say the Aurora ICE facility made them clean walls, floors, showers, and sinks with no pay at all. Those who refused faced punishments that could include up to 72 hours in solitary confinement.

The facility also ran a work program paying $1 a day for jobs like cooking, laundry, and serving food. The lawsuit uses a federal anti-trafficking law and a Colorado law against unjust enrichment.

GEO tried to claim government protection

GEO Group argued it should share the federal government’s legal protections because it runs the facility under a contract with ICE.

The company pointed to a legal idea called derivative sovereign immunity, which says a government contractor should get some of the same shields the government has. A lower court judge rejected that argument.

The judge found that ICE did not direct or require GEO to set up the work rules detainees are challenging.

GEO says it follows ICE rules

GEO Group has defended its labor practices and says its pay rates follow ICE rules.

The company has also argued that lawsuits like this one are really attempts to push back against federal immigration policy.

ICE rules do allow both government-run and private facilities to operate voluntary work programs paying at least $1 a day.

But the district court found that while ICE allows those programs, it never told GEO to force detainees to work or to cap pay at $1 a day.

The court said it’s a defense, not a shield

The justices drew a clear line. They ruled that GEO’s argument counts as a defense it can raise at trial, not a special immunity that lets it avoid trial entirely.

That distinction matters because defenses get tested in court, while immunities can shut down a case early. Since all nine justices agreed, GEO cannot appeal until the lower court finishes its work.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito agreed with the result but wrote separately to explain their reasoning.

Ruling limits all government contractors

The decision reaches well beyond this one case.

The Supreme Court made clear that private companies working under government contracts cannot claim the same legal protections the government itself has.

Any contractor that loses a similar argument in a lower court will now have to go through a full trial before appealing.

Legal experts say the ruling removes a tool contractors could have used to delay lawsuits they were losing.

GEO already lost a similar case in Washington

This is not the first time GEO has faced these accusations.

In Washington state, a federal jury found in 2021 that GEO broke the state’s minimum wage law at its Tacoma detention center. A judge ordered the company to pay more than $23 million in back wages and damages.

That case covered more than 10,000 detainees who earned $1 a day for work that kept the facility running day to day.

The Aurora facility has faced years of criticism

The Aurora ICE Processing Center holds more than 1,500 detainees. Activists and lawmakers have criticized the facility for years over allegations of poor conditions.

Colorado Rep. Jason Crow introduced bipartisan legislation to limit the government’s use of private prisons as immigration detention centers.

Lawmakers have also clashed with the facility over access for oversight visits, raising questions about transparency at one of the country’s largest detention sites.

GEO runs one of the biggest detention networks

GEO Group, based in Florida, is one of the largest private detention providers in the country. The company manages or owns about 77,000 beds across 98 facilities nationwide.

Its contracts include a federal immigration detention center in Newark, N.J. The case comes as the private detention industry grows alongside increased federal immigration enforcement, putting more attention on how these companies operate.

ICE detention numbers hit record highs

The lawsuit lands during a major expansion of immigration detention.

ICE held more than 73,000 people as of January 2026, an 84% jump from the same time in 2025. The Trump administration has set a goal of expanding detention capacity to 100,000 beds.

That growth has increased the government’s reliance on private companies like GEO Group to house detainees, making oversight of these facilities more urgent than ever.

The case heads back to Colorado

The case now returns to the federal district court in Colorado.

GEO Group can still raise its government-contractor defense at trial, but it has to go through the full process first. If the court finds GEO liable, the company can appeal at that point.

The outcome could shape how private detention companies across the country handle detainee labor going forward. California’s filing period opens Feb. 9.

Taxpayer dollars fund these contracts

Billions in taxpayer dollars go toward immigration detention contracts with private companies every year. This ruling makes clear that those companies must follow the same legal rules as any other business.

It could open the door for more lawsuits holding government contractors accountable, not just in detention but across other fields too.

The core question remains whether current labor practices inside these facilities meet the standards set by federal law.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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