Santa Clara, CACalifornia's attorney general has taken the lead in supporting Washington State’s decision to enforce minimum wage laws, which includes GEO, a private prison company that, since at least 2005, has paid thousands of detainee workers $1 per day for labor that is necessary to keep its facility operational. The private prison company has appealed a Washington district court ruling that it owes back pay to detainees.
GEO owns and operates Northwest Detention Center, the second-largest private prison and detention corporation in the U.S. It also contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") to provide detention facilities and run their day-to-day operations. Seventy-four percent of immigrants in ICE custody are held in facilities operated by private prison companies, including GEO. With the capacity to house up to 1,575 immigrant detainees, GEO’s Northwest ICE Processing Center is the fourth-largest immigration detention center in the country.
Late last year, a Washington district court ruled that GEO owed detainees at Tacoma, Washington's Northwest ICE Processing Center $17.3 million in back pay and $5.9 million in damages. According to Law360, the detainees were paid far below Washington's minimum wage to work at the facility. They were paid $1 per day to launder clothes, cook and serve food and clean the entire facility...
With election day in Florida just two days away, congressional candidate Michael Carbonara finds himself in the hot seat over his potential involvement in efforts to suppress negative media covera...