Ending Forced Labor In ICE Detention Centers: A New Approach

Abstract

Privately managed detention centers hold the majority of immigrant detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. Coerced detainee labor in these for-profit facilities is commonplace. The practice contributes significantly to the financial viability of CoreCivic and GEO Group, the two corporations that manage ICE detention centers, but it violates the prohibition on forced labor contained in the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act. This Article provides the first scholarly assessment of a wave of pending class action lawsuits challenging forced labor in privately managed ICE facilities under the TVPA. It concludes that given the breadth of the TVPA and facts revealed in discovery, these lawsuits are likely to succeed and may cause fundamental changes to the current system of mass immigration detention.

Keywords: Immigration, Immigration Detention, Private Prisons, ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Mass Incarceration