Company halts work program instead of upping detainee pay

SEATTLE — Brazilian Jose Soares has been locked up in one of the United States’ largest immigration detention centers for the past two years, passing much of his time cleaning bathrooms and buffing floors at a rate of $1 a day. But last week, a federal jury ruled that Soares and other detainees who cook, clean, do laundry and cut hair at the for-profit lockup in Tacoma were entitled to Washington’s minimum wage, $13.69 an hour. Rather than pay the detainees minimum wage, the Florida-based GEO Group suspended the Voluntary Work Program while it appeals. A federal appeals court panel in that case found the detainees were not entitled to minimum wage because they were “not in an employer-employee relationship but in a detainer-detainee relationship.” Washington’s minimum wage law says residents of state, county and municipal detention facilities are not entitled to minimum wage, but the law contains no such exception for private, for-profit jails. ICE requires private immigration detention contractors to offer voluntary work programs as a way to reduce detainee idleness, with pay set at “at least” $1 per day.