The BulleTin • Thursday, June 3, 2021 A3
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
LOCAL & REGIONAL BRIEFING
WASHINGTON STATE
Do immigrant detainees deserve
minimum wage? Issue goes to trial
BY GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press
SEATTLE — After nearly
four years of litigation and
pandemic-related delays, a
trial is underway to determine
whether the GEO Group must
pay minimum wage to de-
tainees who perform cooking,
cleaning and other tasks at its
immigration detention center
in Washington state.
Detainees are typically paid
$1 per day when they work
shifts in the Voluntary Work
Program at the for-profit
Northwest detention center in
Tacoma. The state’s minimum
wage is now $13.69 per hour.
Attorney General Bob Fer-
guson and some detainees
filed separate lawsuits against
GEO in 2017, arguing that the
company’s contract with the
federal government requires it
to follow state and local laws
— including Washington’s
Minimum Wage Act — and
that GEO, one of the nation’s
largest private detention com-
panies, unjustly profited by
paying so little.
Tacoma-based U.S. Dis-
trict Judge Robert Bryan, who
has rejected several attempts
by GEO to dismiss the law-
suits, consolidated the cases
for trial, which he is conduct-
ing via Zoom because of the
pandemic. Jury selection hap-
pened Tuesday.
“These cases are not about
whether the government’s
contracting with private enti-
ties to operate detention facil-
ities is a good or bad policy,”
Bryan told potential jurors
Tuesday morning. “These
cases are also not about
United States’ immigration
Ted S. Warren/AP file
Workers in the kitchen of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforce-
ment detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, during a media tour
in 2019. GEO Group runs the for-profit detention center.
“By relying on detainee
labor, GEO avoided the
cost of hiring non-detainee
workers and unjustly
pocketed the savings and
resulting profits.”
— The Washington state
attorney general’s statement
policy or border issues.”
In 2014, amid a hunger
strike by detainees, immigrant
rights activists tried to con-
vince the governor’s office and
the state Department of Labor
and Industries that detain-
ees should be paid minimum
wage for work performed
there.
After reviewing the matter,
Labor and Industry officials
determined that Washington
didn’t have jurisdiction over
the federal government’s de-
tainees for purposes of wage
issues, according to public re-
cords obtained by GEO and
filed in the case.
In 2017, amid a flurry of
lawsuits over the new Trump
administration’s immigration
policies, Ferguson reached a
different conclusion, saying
GEO was exploiting Washing-
ton residents.
Trump’s Justice Depart-
ment sought — and failed
— to have Washington’s law-
suit against GEO lawsuit dis-
missed, calling it “an aggres-
sive and legally unjustified
effort by the state of Washing-
ton to interfere with federal
immigration enforcement.”
GEO opened the deten-
tion center in 2005 and has
expanded it twice. It houses
people accused of civil im-
migration violations pending
the resolution of their cases,
including potential deporta-
tion. It can now hold 1,575
detainees, though because of
pandemic-related concerns
the population recently was
about 250.
In a separate effort, the state
is trying to close it entirely.
GEO insists it is immune
from the minimum wage
lawsuits by virtue of its re-
lationship with the federal
government. At any rate, the
detainees are not “employees”
entitled to minimum wage, it
argues.
U.S. Immigration and Cus-
toms Enforcement requires
private detention facilities to
operate work programs for
detainees as a way to reduce
their boredom and improve
their morale, GEO argues.
The company doesn’t have a
choice but to offer the pro-
gram even if the tasks as-
signed are redundant or if the
detainee lacks skill — “ineffi-
ciencies that would never be
tolerated in an employee-em-
ployer relationship,” GEO ar-
gued in a trial brief.
Washington state, however,
argues that the federal gov-
ernment requires detainees to
be paid “at least” $1 per day;
nothing prevents the company
from paying more.
“By relying on detainee la-
bor, GEO avoided the cost of
hiring non-detainee workers
and unjustly pocketed the sav-
ings and resulting profits,” the
attorney general’s office wrote
in its trial brief.
Further, GEO deprived
local residents of jobs they
might otherwise have worked,
the state says.
The trial could last several
weeks.
COCC to offer geospatial
science degree program
Central Oregon Commu-
nity College will offer a new as-
sociate degree program in geo-
spatial science starting this fall.
Students will learn how to an-
alyze and collect real-time spa-
tial data — information about
specific points on Earth — and
how to incorporate that in maps,
as well as environmental and so-
cial justice work, according to a
COCC press release.
Employment opportunities
in cartography are expected to
grow by 4% between 2019 and
2029, according to the U.S. Bu-
reau of Labor Statistics.
Students who earn their as-
sociate degree in geospatial sci-
ence from COCC will be able
to easily transfer to the similar
bachelor’s degree program at
Oregon State University, the re-
lease stated.
Teen accused in hoax
explosive plot in Portland
A 19-year-old who was ar-
rested and accused of dis-
mantling a card reader and
intercom in the driveway of a
federal building in Portland late
last year had a suspicious bottle
inside her backpack that drew a
response from the city’s bomb
squad, federal authorities say.
The bottle’s label warned:
“DO NOT OPEN CONTAINS:
U-DIMETHYLHYDRAZINE
TRIETHYLALUMINIUM
WILL IGNITE IF EXPOSED
TO AIR,” next to a hand-drawn
colored hazmat placard, accord-
ing to a federal complaint.
Federal Protective Service
agent Micah Coring consulted
with a forensic chemist with
the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explo-
sives, who concluded the name
and labeling on the bottle indi-
cated a “self-igniting Molotov
Cocktail,” the complaint says.
The discovery led the Port-
land Police Bureau’s bomb
squad to respond to the U.S.
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement facility in south
Portland on Dec. 19.
It wasn’t until days later that
authorities learned the pur-
ported explosive was a hoax.
Rowan L. McManigal, who
federal agents say was carrying
the bottle in a backpack that
night, was interviewed days
later and admitted the bottle
only contained water and was
“meant to waste people’s time,”
Federal Protective Services
agent Micah Coring wrote in
the complaint.
McManigal was one of three
people who appeared Tuesday
in U.S. District Court in Port-
land, accused of vandalizing
the ICE field office or another
federal building in Portland.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jolie
A. Russo released McMani-
gal from custody pending trial
with the conditions that she
not return after business hours
to the ICE building or other
federal buildings in Portland.
She’s due back in court July 1.
Feds: Seattle man
arrested trying to join ISIS
The Justice Department says
a 20-year-old Seattle man has
been arrested after trying to join
the Islamic State terror group.
A criminal complaint un-
sealed Tuesday in U.S. District
Court in Seattle said Elvin
Hunter Bgorn Williams was
arrested Friday as he checked
in for a flight to Cairo.
The complaint described him
as self-radicalized and said he
came to the agency’s attention
when members of a Seattle-area
mosque reported concerns.
The FBI said Williams
posted a video of himself on-
line pledging loyalty to the ter-
ror group, also known as ISIS.
— Bulletin staff and wire reports
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