Judge won't dismiss case on wages of immigrant detainees

By Gene Johnson / Associated Press

SEATTLE — Washington state’s effort to force a privately run immigration jail to pay its detainees minimum wage for work they perform can continue after all, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Robert Bryan in Tacoma said last month that he intended to dismiss the case, and he invited state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and lawyers for the GEO Group, which runs the detention center, to comment on a proposed order he planned to file.

Upon reviewing those further arguments, the judge said Wednesday he won’t issue the order and the case can continue. The legal questions remaining in the case are thorny enough that the matter can’t immediately be decided, Bryan said.

Ferguson, a Democrat, sued GEO in 2017, saying the civil detainees must be paid minimum wage for janitorial, kitchen, laundry and other work they perform at the detention facility in Tacoma — $12 an hour, as opposed to the $1 per day they receive. The lawsuit sought to force GEO to give up profits it made by underpaying the detainees, and has been seen as a test of how well Democratic state officials could resist President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.

https://www.heraldnet.com/business/judge-wont-dismiss-case-on-wages-of-immigrant-detainees/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=bdd6e50329-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-bdd6e50329-228635337

Trumpy may not get his slave labor.