YOU LOVE TO SEE IT: An Immigration Detention Profiteer Faces The Music

Friends:

Good things are happening! A group of formerly detained immigrants can advance a lawsuit against a private corporation that operates detention facilities, while the president moved forward with “the single, biggest thing the Biden Administration can do on its own without Congress to improve the accessibility and affordability of health coverage.” The largest federation of unions in the country, meanwhile, is finally pouring money into new worker organizing efforts, while indigenous tribes are recovering thousands of ancestral remains from universities that stole them.

All this and much more in this week’s edition of You Love To See It below, a weekly feature reviewing good news, progress, and action steps that’s one of the many features available only to Lever supporting subscribers.

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Immigration Detention Company Faces Class-Action Lawsuit

This week, a group of formerly detained immigrants won a major victory in federal court against the GEO Group, a private company that operates the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Aurora, Colorado. The court decision rejected the company’s attempts to decertify a 40,000-person lawsuit filed against them, alleging that the GEO Group had engaged in forced labor and unjust profiteering.

This ruling has paved the way for the lawsuit to proceed against the GEO Group, which runs detention facilities across the country.

“This decision makes clear what our clients have long known: the cruel and unlawful practices at issue in this case are rooted in GEO’s desire to maximize profit and exploit the labor of vulnerable detained immigrants — not government requirements,” said Juno Turner, litigation director at Towards Justice, in a press release. “We have been fighting to get our clients’ stories to trial for more than eight years, and this victory brings us one step closer to holding GEO accountable.”

The GEO Group had argued that it was protected by a federal law that defends government contractors from lawsuits while carrying out federal directives. “The record shows that GEO has not simply performed as ICE directed,” wrote Senior U.S. District Judge John Kane. “GEO went beyond its contract with ICE in requiring detainees to clean up all common areas and after other detainees under the threat of segregation.”

Biden Finally Fixes “Family Glitch”

All this and much more in this week’s edition of You Love To See It below, a weekly feature reviewing good news, progress, and action steps that’s one of the many features available only to Lever supporting subscribers.