Tacoma detention center must pay for violating minimum wage law, appeals court affirms

A federal appeals court on Wednesday refused to give the operator of the immigrant detention center in Tacoma another chance to make its case for paying detainees as little as $1 per day.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the request from The GEO Group, the for-profit company that runs the facility, to reconsider its decision from earlier this year, siding with lower courts that found GEO violated state minimum wage law.

The decision affirms that the Florida-based GEO Group will need to pay more than $23 million that a jury and federal judge previously awarded. The next step in the company’s fight could be the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, brought by detainees and the state of Washington, has been ongoing since 2017.

GEO Group has run the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma since 2005. Its current contract with the federal government, signed in 2015, awarded the company at least $700 million to operate the facility over the following decade. The facility holds people detained by federal immigration enforcement on civil violations as they await potential deportation or release back into the United States.

https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2025/08/13/tacoma-detention-center-must-pay-for-violating-minimum-wage-law-appeals-court-affirms/