A long-running lawsuit claiming that a private prison contractor broke federal and Colorado law by forcing immigration detainees to work moved closer to trial Wednesday after the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a bid by the company to toss out the case.

The contractor, GEO Group, asserted it was entitled to immunity and should not face a civil trial because the firm’s detainee work policies were carried out at the direction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.


The class-action lawsuit, filed in 2014, focused on practices at GEO’s facility in Aurora, Colorado. Immigration detainees there were required to clean all common areas and faced possible solitary confinement for failing to comply. They were offered $1 a day for work preparing food and cleaning laundry at a time when the state’s minimum wage was $8 an hour.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/25/supreme-court-ruling-ice-detention-contractor-00797951