The Supreme Court heard a case Tuesday in which a private prison company argues that it should have immunity from being sued for practices at one of its immigrant detention centers in Colorado. The lawsuit against GEO Group was brought by detainees who alleged that they did work at a detention center for $1 a day and were forced to work for no pay. The company reported $2.4 billion in revenue last year, and 41 percent of that revenue stemmed from contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The core legal question is one of procedure. GEO Group argues that it should have sovereign immunity — which normally shields the government from certain lawsuits — because the company is performing its work on behalf of the government. Specifically, GEO Group argues it should benefit from something called “derivative sovereign immunity.” Essentially, the company argues that it should get the same immunity that government would get in a case like this.
GEO Group is also arguing that if a lower court denies this immunity, the company should be able to appeal the issue immediately and not have to wait until after a trial. If federal contractors were allowed to do so, it would allow them to delay unfavorable rulings as well as potentially eliminate trial litigation costs — while plaintiffs would still face significant legal costs for the appeals.
In 2014, Alejandro Menocal and other former detainees at the Aurora Immigration Processing Center in Colorado filed a class action lawsuit against GEO Group under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act and a Colorado law against unjust enrichment. The detainees alleged that GEO Group required them to clean common areas of the facility and that some who refused faced punishments such as solitary confinement or loss of phone privileges.
Additionally, GEO Group operated a “Voluntary Work Program” at the Colorado facility where detainees could work up to eight hours a day helping in the kitchen, doing laundry, and at other jobs where they could earn $1 a day. GEO Group also requires detainees at the facility to clean common areas, such as walls, floors, showers, and sinks, according to its sanitation policy. GEO Group does not compensate detainees for this work.
In federal district court, GEO Group argued that it could not be held liable because its treatment of detainees was directed by its ICE contract. ICE does authorize a Voluntary Work Program where detainees at both government-run and privately managed facilities can “receive monetary compensation of not less than $1 per day for work completed.”
GEO Group asked for the case to be dismissed under a claim of derivative sovereign immunity. The district court denied the request, finding that ICE did not direct or require GEO Group to compel detainees to engage in forced labor or to limit payment to detainees to $1 per day.
GEO Group then appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, claiming that it could immediately appeal the lower court’s ruling instead of waiting until after trial, which is the normal procedural practice. It did this by invoking the “collateral order doctrine,” a legal principle that allows immediate appeals of rulings that are separate from the merits of a case under the theory that a trial will so badly harm a party that the appeal cannot wait.
The 10th Circuit ruled that the lower court’s denial of the immunity claim was not subject to immediate appeal. However, the circuit courts are split on this issue, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
At the Supreme Court last week, GEO’s lawyer argued, “Contractors following the government’s instructions are immune from suit for the same reason government employees are immune. That is, they are doing the sovereign’s work.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett summed up the narrow focus of the Court’s inquiry noting, “We’re not being asked to decide whether you should have a defense to liability. We’re asking whether this is within the collateral order doctrine.”
Surprisingly, the Trump administration filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that “derivative sovereign immunity” only covers lawfully delegated authority and that the case should first proceed to trial to determine the underlying facts before an appeal on the immunity question. The government noted that not having an immediate appeal has not prevented GEO Group from bidding for government contracts.
The case is also receiving attention because of the Trump administration’s aggressive mass deportation agenda, which relies on government contractors such as GEO Group to transport and house detainees throughout the process. Trump’s budget gave an unprecedented $45 billion to expand immigration detention capacity, which the administration wants to ramp up to 100,000 detention beds. As of this week, the number of detainees in ICE custody is about 66,000, the highest ever.
A ruling for GEO Group would benefit all government contractors, as it would open the door for them to immediately appeal a lower court’s denial of derivative sovereign immunity.
On GEO’s quarterly earnings call this month, GEO Group Executive Chairman George Zoley told investors, “Since the beginning of 2025, we’ve entered into new or expanded contracts that represent over $460 million in new incremental annualized revenues that are already under contract and are expected to normalize next year. This represents the largest amount of new business that we have won in a single year in our company’s history.”
