On February 22, 2018, a former civil immigration detainee filed a putative class action lawsuit in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas. The Plaintiff, represented by private counsel, sued the private prison company CoreCivic, Inc. under the Federal Trafficking in Victims Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1589 (the “TPVA”). The Plaintiff claimed that civil immigration detainees had been forced to work for 1-2 dollars a day or no wages under threats including solitary confinement and denial of basic services. Additionally, the Plaintiff also brought claims of negligence and unjust enrichment against CoreCivic. The Plaintiff sought declaratory and injunctive relief, monetary damages, including disgorgement of profits and punitive damages, and attorney’s fees and costs. In addition, the Plaintiff sought certification of the class as “All civil immigration detainees who performed labor for no pay or at a rate of compensation of $1.00 to $2.00 per day for work performed for CoreCivic at any detention facility owned or operated by it from February 20, 2007 to the applicable opt-out date, inclusive.”
According to the Plaintiff’s complaint, the civil immigration detainees were forced to perform labor such as cleaning the “pods” where they were housed, cooking meals, and cleaning, maintaining, and operating the detention facilities. Detainees who refused to work were threatened with punishments such as confinement, physical restraint, substantial and sustained restriction, deprivation, solitary confinement, and retaliatory transfer to other facilities. Some were also denied basic hygiene supplies such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, or sanitary napkins unless they worked. During one instance, after the Plaintiff filed a complaint signed by other detainees against the facility for serving food infested with worms, the facility responded by fabricating a chickenpox outbreak and placing all the female detainees in quarantine. During the quarantine, the women received spoiled food and water contaminated with dog hair. The Plaintiff alleged this was in retaliation for the original complaint about the infested food.
The Defendant moved to dismiss on June 8, 2018, arguing that the TVPA does not apply to labor performed by lawfully detained immigration detainees held in a private detention center and that the complaint failed to allege sufficient facts to state a claim. Judge Lee Yeakel denied the Defendant’s motion to dismiss on March 1, 2019 because the text of the TVPA ("[w]hoever knowingly provides or obtains the labor or services of a person by . . . any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause the person to believe that, if that person did not perform such labor or services, that person or another person would suffer serious harm”) did not exclude the federal government or private centers performing a federal function. 2019 WL 4388425. In addition, Judge Yeakel found that solitary confinement and the threat of solitary confined sufficiently alleged the means to achieve forced labor and thus, the Plaintiff’s action could proceed.
The Defendant subsequently filed a motion for Certificate of Appealability for Interlocutory Appeal on the denial of its motion to dismiss. The Defendant's motion was based in part on similar cases against the Defendant being appealed in other states such as Georgia. Judge Yeakel granted the motion on June 10, 2019, along with the Defendant’s motion to stay all proceedings pending the resolution of the appeal.
On June 24, 2019, this case was appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (Docket #19-50691). The issue on appeal to the Fifth Circuit was whether the TVPA applies to work programs in federal immigration detention facilities operated by private for-profit contractors. As of October 10, 2019, this case is ongoing.
Mary Novakovic - 10/10/2019
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