Supreme Court Ruling on GEO Group Lawsuit

The Supreme Court has decided not to shield the GEO Group, a significant private prison company, from a lawsuit claiming that detainees in Colorado were coerced into working for little or no pay.

In an unanimous decision, the justices dismissed an appeal from GEO Group, based in Florida, which aimed to quickly reverse a previous court’s ruling that permitted the lawsuit to move forward.

This ruling doesn’t specifically address the validity of the allegations, but it allows the legal process to continue. Should GEO Group face an unfavorable outcome, they are still able to appeal.

The lawsuit, originally filed back in 2014, asserts that detainees at a facility in Aurora are compelled to work as unpaid cleaners and fulfill other roles to keep up living standards and offset poor dietary provisions. According to the complaint, some detainees are paid as little as $1 per day.

In its defense, GEO Group claimed that its labor practices are compliant with federal directives, suggesting that, as a federal contractor, it should be exempt from such lawsuits.

Following a lower court’s decision stating that the company did not qualify for immunity, GEO took the matter to the Supreme Court, which ultimately did not intervene.

GEO Group is a major player in the private detention sector within the United States, managing around 77,000 beds across 98 facilities. The company oversees immigration detention centers nationwide, including a new federal facility in Newark, New Jersey, where the local mayor was arrested during a protest in May 2025; the charges were later dismissed.

There are other similar lawsuits occurring in different states. In Washington, for example, GEO was previously ordered to pay over $23 million related to issues surrounding detainee labor practices.

The Colorado case is set to proceed in the lower courts.