The Supreme Court recently heard a case involving GEO Group, a private prison company, which is seeking immunity from lawsuits concerning practices at its immigrant detention center in Colorado. Detainees at the center have filed a lawsuit alleging they were paid $1 a day for work and forced to work without pay. GEO Group’s reported revenue for the past year was $2.4 billion, with 41% coming from contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The main legal issue at hand is procedural. GEO Group claims it should be granted “derivative sovereign immunity,” a protection typically afforded to the government, arguing that it performs its duties on behalf of the government. They assert that this immunity should apply to them as federal contractors.
GEO Group also contends that if denied immunity by a lower court, they should have the right to appeal immediately, which would allow them to defer potentially adverse rulings and reduce litigation costs. Opponents argue that such a provision would impose significant legal expenses on plaintiffs due to the appeals.
The case began in 2014 when Alejandro Menocal and other detainees at the Aurora Immigration Processing Center sued GEO Group under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act and Colorado law against unjust enrichment. The lawsuit claims that GEO Group forced detainees to clean common areas and punished those who refused with solitary confinement or loss of phone privileges.
GEO Group operates a “Voluntary Work Program” at the Colorado facility, where detainees can work up to eight hours a day in various jobs for $1 a day. According to GEO Group’s sanitation policy, detainees are required to clean common areas without compensation.
In federal district court, GEO Group argued that their treatment of detainees was in accordance with their ICE contract. ICE’s Voluntary Work Program permits detainees at both government and privately managed facilities to be paid at least $1 per day for work.
GEO Group sought dismissal of the case under the claim of derivative sovereign immunity, which was denied by the district court. The court found that ICE did not require GEO Group to enforce forced labor or limit payment to $1 per day.
GEO Group appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, invoking the “collateral order doctrine” to argue for an immediate appeal of the immunity denial. The 10th Circuit ruled that the denial was not eligible for immediate appeal. Due to differing opinions among circuit courts, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
At the Supreme Court, GEO’s lawyer argued, “Contractors following the government’s instructions are immune from suit for the same reason government employees are immune. That is, they are doing the sovereign’s work.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett highlighted that the Court’s focus was on whether the issue falls within the collateral order doctrine, rather than assessing liability.
The case has garnered attention due to its implications for government contractors and the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation policies, which involve companies like GEO Group. The administration has allocated substantial funds to increase immigration detention capacity, with a goal to expand to 100,000 detention beds.
A favorable ruling for GEO Group could benefit government contractors by allowing them to immediately challenge lower court decisions on derivative sovereign immunity.
In a recent earnings call, GEO Group Executive Chairman George Zoley stated, “Since the beginning of 2025, we’ve entered into new or expanded contracts that represent over $460 million in new incremental annualized revenues that are already under contract and are expected to normalize next year. This represents the largest amount of new business that we have won in a single year in our company’s history.”
