Jury set to hear $1-a-day labor case after 12-year delay

A federal jury will begin weighing evidence Monday in a lawsuit that has spanned 12 years and four presidential administrations. The case accuses Geo Group of forcing immigrant detainees at its Aurora, Colorado, facility to clean their housing units under threat of solitary confinement. The lawsuit also challenges the company's voluntary work program, which pays detainees one dollar per day for various tasks.

The legal battle centers on practices at the Aurora facility between 2004 and 2014. Although the suit lists nine former detainees as plaintiffs, it operates as a class action covering thousands of others detained during the Bush and Obama eras. Attorneys argue that Geo Group’s methods were designed to maximize financial gain through a highly profitable business model. The publicly traded company expects to generate approximately three billion dollars in revenue this year, supported in part by new contracts secured under President Donald Trump's administration.

Geo Group signed a temporary contract earlier this month to extend its agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The company has collected hundreds of millions of dollars for operating the facility. In prior legal filings, Geo denied that its practices constituted forced labor or unjust enrichment. The company described the cleaning requirement as a civic duty permitted under federal law. A minimum wage claim was dismissed in July 2015, but the remaining allegations proceed to trial.

Hans Meyer, a Denver immigration lawyer on the legal team, stated that the case places a core element of Geo’s business model on trial. David Seligman, another attorney on the team, said the litigation addresses the exploitation inherent in private prison companies seeking to cut costs. Meyer noted that public awareness of the brutality of immigration detention has finally caught up to reality. The company has faced other legal challenges nationwide, including a 23 million dollar verdict in Washington state for minimum wage violations that an appeals court upheld last year.

The Aurora facility opened in the 1980s and serves as the only detention center in Colorado. It holds up to 1,532 people suspected of lacking legal status. Geo Group was awarded a 528.6 million dollar contract earlier this year to open a second facility in Hudson. The trial is expected to last up to three weeks, with opening statements likely on Tuesday. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the company on a technical question earlier this year and previously rejected one of its appeals.

Last week, Geo Group asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to delay the proceedings. The appellate court rejected that request in a brief ruling on Thursday morning. A Geo Group spokesman did not return a message seeking comment on the upcoming trial. More than 40 attorneys have been listed as part of the legal team at various points during the long litigation process.