Thread: CO - Illegal Aliens Suing Detention Center for ‘Forced Labor’

by LANA SHADWICK
10 Apr 2017
Aurora, CO

More than 60,000 illegal aliens housed in a Colorado detention center are suing for forcing them to perform housekeeping chores. They allege the center compelled “forced labor” in violation of federal human trafficking laws. The defendant contractors say the claims are unprecedented.

The detainees sued for money damages and restitution.

The lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, Alejandro Menocal, stayed in the facility for three months while he was facing deportation. He said, “It’s their job to run the facility, and instead they used and abused us to run the facility, and that’s why we’re suing.”

Lawyers for the defendant says no other court has ever recognized trafficking or unjust enrichment claims for cleaning bathrooms, serving meals, doing laundry, and performing other housekeeping duties. They write that in spite of this fact, the district court denied the company’s motion for an immediate appeal on the merits, “thereby shielding the merits from this Court’s review.” They assert, “Such unprecedented claims deserve extra vigilance to ensure that class certification based on them follows ‘rigorous analysis’.”

The contractor who operates the Colorado facility has filed court documents asking for permission to appeal the judge’s ruling that the illegal aliens can proceed as a class action.

Lawyers for GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) write that the district court’s class certification “presents legally unsettled issues of national importance and manifest errors that warrant immediate review.” They ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to decide whether the federal district court properly certified classes authorizing an alleged 60,000 immigration detainees to seek monetary relief.

In particular, the defendant-petitioner asks the Tenth Circuit to determine:

(1) Does a contractor operating a detention facility for the federal government compel ‘forced labor’ in violation of a federal human trafficking statute by requiring detainees to periodically perform housekeeping chores, when that contractor and its housekeeping policies are subject to extensive federal contractual and regulatory requirements as well as direct federal supervision, and the housekeeping policy is both longstanding and judicially-accepted?

(2) Is the contractor ‘unjustly enriched,’ and required to pay restitution to detainees for the detainees’ participation in a federally-created, sponsored and supervised voluntary work program, when the settled expectation for decades has been that participants are provided a daily allowance of $1?

GEO operates immigration detention facilities under contracts with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They have operated the Aurora, Colorado detention facility since 1986.

The federal contractor urges they are subject to extensive contractual, regulatory and statutory requirements and having illegal aliens do housekeeping chores is a long-standing practice that has been signed off by the courts.

The ICE detainees sued saying the contractor was unjustly enriched under Colorado law when the defendant had them work for a daily allowance of $1. GEO argues that the Voluntary Work Program (VWP) has been authorized by Congress and the $1 daily allowance is reimbursed by ICE.

In their “Petition for Permission to Appeal Class Certification,” GEO argues that Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) to punish human traffickers, not to award damages to illegal aliens who must be housed in a detention facility after they illegally enter the country. Moreover, they say that the district court did not demand any evidence but made its decision to certify the lawsuit as a class action “based solely on presumptions and inferences.” The district court did not have any evidence that even one detainee expected to receive more than the daily allowance. Detainees are not employees and should not expect special treatment, GEO writes.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) authorizes DHS/ICE to detain aliens while they are waiting for removal or hearings and requires that ICE detains certain classes of immigrants. ICE requires that detention facilities “maintain the highest sanitation standards at all times in all locations without exception.” There is a supervised program of daily cleaning by all detainees, and GEO implements these requirements “through an ICE-approved program.” “Nobody trafficked them there.” The district court should have granted their motion to dismiss the lawsuit, they urge.

Issuing a questionable class certification order could force the federal contractor to enter into a settlement. GEO is the only defendant in the case. The contractor urges that they based their contract with the federal government on the assumption that the sanitation policy and daily allowance would continue to withstand legal scrutiny (as it has “for decades,” they write). The district clerk’s certification of a class of plaintiffs that consists of all those detained at the facility over the past ten years presents “a potentially catastrophic risk” to GEO’s ability to honor their contracts.

The alien detainees also claim that GEO violated Colorado’s minimum wage laws.

The lawyers for the detainee plaintiffs responded to GEO’s petition to appeal the class certification saying they oppose the appeal. They argue that the district court’s order is not a “death knell” for the litigation and the district court did not commit manifest error because the class certification issues “are not novel.”

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/...-forced-labor/

The American people have been working for years, to pay for them and suddenly they can't clean up after themselves?

Originally Posted by nntrixie

The American people have been working for years, to pay for them and suddenly they can't clean up after themselves?

Personally, I think this is less about the illegals and more about a greedy lawyer, or group of lawyers, out to increase the size of their bank account(s).

GET THEM OUT OF HERE!! That said, we shouldn't have private prisons. These should all be government owned and operated facilities.

Even in jail they these people are after anything they can get. Inmates in ALL prison facilities perform jobs. They are not special and they are not entitled. JMO

That is why kelly's idea of setting up more centers for illegal crossers separating adults & children is bad idea. Remove the Wilberforce Act instead and we won't be forced to take in children at the border - 250,000 over the last 4 years is more than enough - only 3% get deported after years of waiting. They will be anchor babying before their case comes up.

Unbelievable the money, time and thought spent on illegals that we have to feed everyday in prisons. To argue that being illegally in the country is a civil crime & they should be PAID is ludicrous. Guess the Hilton with maid service is more to this judges liking. Deport them all and build a wall for border security.

Forced to work? 60,000 undocumented immigrants may sue detention center
A lawsuit alleging that a privately owned immigrant detention center coerced detainees to work was granted class action status Monday. Plaintiffs say as many as 60,000 detainees could be eligible March 1, 2017 —A class action suit alleging that as many as tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants were coerced to perform free labor in a privately operated Colorado detention center has been given the green light to move forward in a federal district court.

Today, a district judge ruled to grant the 2014 lawsuit class action certification, marking the first time a class action suit alleging forced labor has been brought against a private prison. The suit was launched by nine former and current detainees at the Aurora Detention Facility, a holding center near Denver, Colo., operated privately on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The lawsuit may now encompass as many as 60,000 people detained at the center between 2004 and 2014, according to Andrew Free, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys.
Roughly 34,000 people are in immigration detention centers on any given day in the United States, 60 percent of whom in privately operated facilities. Running those centers proves a pricey task, and private prison operators – which stand to gain by employing cheap labor to maintain the centers and turn a profit – resort to legal, cheap labor on part of detainees.
But the first-of-its-kind case could shed further light on an ongoing issue. As more argue that detainees and prisoners must be paid – and at wages higher than $1 per day – a shakeup of the system could take place.

While low-wage work has long been a feature of the United States prison system, there’s a legal difference between forcing those who have committed a crime and therefore foregone some 13th Amendment protections to earn their stay in prison, and those being held on civil matters, like immigrants. Coercing detainees to perform labor would violate ICE work standards, which guarantee the protection from workplace hazards as well as discrimination in voluntary programs.

“Residents will be able to volunteer for work assignments, but otherwise not be required to work, except to do personal housekeeping,” the agency’s standards state.
“The private prison immigration detention center and ICE collaboration doesn’t really work without the forced labor of these detainees in Aurora,” plaintiff's attorney Mr. Free told The Christian Science Monitor.

“The question is, if the business model relies on having detained people clean, cook, do laundry, cut hair, maintain the facility – that’s what the business model requires in this particular case – are we able to shift that business model? Is the American taxpayer comfortable footing that bill?”

“The spotlight has certainly been on private corporations running and managing prisons. It certainly was last year under the Obama administration, and the momentum has changed under Trump,” says Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior counsel for the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York.

“Paying $1 to $3 a day is incredibly low," she says. "Just like in a state prison, if someone wants to participate in a work program, they should be compensated at a higher wage.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice...tention-center

Originally Posted by MW

Personally, I think this is less about the illegals and more about a greedy lawyer, or group of lawyers, out to increase the size of their bank account(s).

It's six of one half dozen of another.

The illegals like to pretend being put upon and 'poor me'. It's been their stock in trade since the American people finally woke up to what was happening.

Also, lawyers are more than willing to take advantage of any situation to make money.

Many in our government are more than willing to pay lawyers to throw monkey wrenches in the machinery.

Bottom line, the illegals will use anything - say anything - do anything to get what they want, and greedy lawyers and politicians are always willing to help them.

Because they have orgs that pay for the lawyers and obama gave many of them our $$$$, la raza for one, Dept of Justice slush fund money in the billions

Obama DOJ Funneled BILLIONS to Liberal Activist Groups

March 3, 2017


(Fox News) The Obama administration funneled billions of dollars to activist organizations through a Department of Justice slush fund scheme, according to congressional investigators.

“It’s clear partisan politics played a role in the illicit actions that were made,” Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, told Fox News. “The DOJ is the last place this should have occurred.”

Findings spearheaded by the House Judiciary Committee point to a process shrouded in secrecy whereby monies were distributed to a labyrinth of nonprofit organizations involved with grass-roots activism.

“Advocates for big government and progressive power are using the Justice Department to extort money from corporations,” Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton told Fox News. “It’s a shakedown. It’s corrupt, pure and simple.”
There is a recent effort by Republicans to eliminate the practice, which many believe was widely abused during the Obama administration.

When big banks are sued by the government for discrimination or mortgage abuse, they can settle the cases by donating to third-party non-victims. The settlements do not specify how these third-party groups could use the windfall.

So far, investigators have accounted for $3 billion paid to “non-victim entities."

Critics say banks are incentivized to donate the funds to non-profits rather than giving it to consumers.

“The underlying problem with the slush funds is we don’t know exactly where the money is going,” Ted Frank, director of The Competitive Enterprise Institute Center for Class Action Fairness, told Fox News. “Using enforcement authority to go after corporate defendants, DOJ bureaucrats are taking billions away from taxpayers to fund their pet projects overriding congressional preferences…”

http://www.libertyheadlines.com/obam...oups/?AID=7236

We need to stop all that crap right here, right now. Sessions will stop that bull. I hope so anyway. No more DOJ slush funds. Why did Congress ever create these funds to begin with??!!! Repeal them all now. Wake Up Congress. Oh wait ..... you're not even in town to wake up. Never mind. What a useless bunch.

Hopefully Trump and Sessions have seen these subversive funds and have eliminated them from the budget request. Hope so!!