The Supreme Court recently unanimously ruled against a private prison company that works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold undocumented immigrants. Now, legal experts are saying that this will cause more problems for migrants.
This decision could lead to more lawsuits against privately owned prisons that have contracts with ICE or other government agencies right now. The Daily Signal said that the decision came after a lawsuit that had been in the courts for more than ten years.
Because of Wednesday’s ruling, people who are being held for immigration reasons will still be able to sue The GEO Group, the defendant in this case, for making them work for only $1 a day. The company tried to get the lawsuit thrown out by saying that as a government contractor with ICE, it had sovereign immunity.
The lawsuit goes back to 2014, when detainees in Aurora, Colorado, said they were made to do janitorial and other work for little or no pay.
Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote for the whole court, said, “The terms of the ICE contract did not tell GEO to follow the work rules in question.”
The GEO Group runs 98 facilities, including one in Newark, New Jersey, where Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested for protesting last year.
Alejandro Menocal, a prisoner, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the other prisoners at the Aurora facility. The lawsuit takes issue with two GEO policies that are meant to cut down on labor costs. The plaintiffs say that the company broke a federal law against forced labor and a Colorado law against getting rich unfairly.
GEO defended what it did and at first wanted the case thrown out, saying it was just an ICE contractor. But a district judge sided with the plaintiffs. Menocal didn’t win the case outright, but he was allowed to keep fighting it.
“If GEO is found guilty, they can of course appeal… “But GEO has to wait until then,” Kagan wrote.
All nine justices agreed with the decision, but Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito did not agree on the reasons behind it.
A lawyer who fought for the Colorado detainees praised the decision.
“The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision reaffirms a straightforward rule: government contractors like GEO do not qualify for sovereign immunity and must follow the same ‘one case, one appeal’ principle that governs every other litigant,” attorney Jennifer Bennett said, according to the AP.
The GEO Group, which is based in Florida, is one of the biggest private detention providers in the US. It runs or owns about 77,000 beds in 98 facilities. One of its contracts is for a new federal immigration detention center. During a protest in May 2025, Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested there. Later, the charges against the Democrat were dropped.
There have been similar lawsuits for immigration detainees in other places, like Washington state, where the company had to pay more than $23 million. There is no clear indication that that decision is being appealed.
A federal judge appointed by President Trump also found the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in civil contempt for breaking a court order about moving a detainee in January.
According to Conservative Brief, Minnesota District Court Judge Eric C. Tostrud ordered the federal government to pay for the detainee’s flight back to Minnesota on Monday. The detainee was only known as “Fernando T.”
Tostrud said that Fernando, a Mexican citizen, was let go from the Texas detention center at the end of January without his things. He was worried that federal officials hadn’t explained why they were keeping Fernando’s things when he was released.
Fernando filed a habeas corpus petition on January 19, asking for either his release from jail or a bond hearing. The next day, he asked for a temporary restraining order to keep him from being moved while his petition was being looked at.
Tostrud then gave an order that the federal government could not move the detainee. The federal government, on the other hand, said that it had moved Fernando to a facility in El Paso, Texas, on January 22.