US Supreme Court denies GEO Group quick appeal in immigrant detainee labor case

Geo

25/02/2026 19:04

By Daniel Wiessner

Feb 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that GEO Group cannot immediately appeal a lower court's decision denying the private prison operator governmental immunity in a class action alleging that immigrant detainees were forced to work and paid $1 a day.

The justices in a unanimous decision said the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals correctly found that an order allowing the case to proceed to trial was incremental and could not be appealed until the lawsuit is resolved.

The issue is technical but significant for federal contractors. The government is generally immune from legal liability arising from its performance of typical governmental functions, and that can extend to contractors in some situations.

Wednesday's ruling means contractors who are denied immunity at the trial court level must wait longer for appeals courts to weigh in, prolonging cases.

The lawsuit filed in 2014 in Colorado federal court accuses GEO of engaging in labor trafficking by threatening detainees awaiting civil deportation proceedings at an Aurora, Colorado, facility with solitary confinement if they refused to participate in a work program.

GEO has denied wrongdoing and argued that it is immune from being sued over its work program because it was acting on behalf of the government.

Writing for the Supreme Court, Justice Elena Kagan said that because governmental immunity is a legal defense and not an absolute bar to being sued, the denial of immunity cannot be immediately appealed.

"A valid defense leads to a judgment of non-liability," Kagan wrote. "But it does not allow the defendant to escape the varied rigors and costs of legal proceedings."

 Florida-based GEO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 Jennifer Bennett, who represents the plaintiffs, applauded the ruling in a statement.

 “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," she said.

GEO operates more than a dozen federal civil immigrant detention centers across the country and has faced at least two lawsuits over a work program at a Washington facility. The company has said that work programs at its facilities are voluntary and that federal regulations permitted the company to pay detainees as little as $1 a day to cook, clean, perform repairs, and staff a barber shop and library.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in January upheld rulings in separate cases requiring GEO to pay more than $23 million to the state of Washington and hundreds of immigrant detainees in the state for failing to pay the minimum wage to detainees who worked.

The court rejected GEO's claim that it was entitled to immunity, saying the government did not dictate the wages GEO must pay to detainees or require it to operate the work program.

The case is GEO Group v. Menocal, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 24-758.

For GEO: Dominic Draye of Greenberg Traurig

For the plaintiffs: Jennifer Bennett of Gupta Wessler

Read more:

US Supreme Court to review GEO Group's loss in immigrant detainee forced labor case

GEO Group can't nix $23 mln verdict over immigrant detainee pay

GEO Group must pay minimum wage to immigrant detainees, court rules

GEO Group wins legal challenge to California ban on private immigrant prisons

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York)