Wage and hour cases are most certainly civil rights cases. Every person has the right to be paid for their labor: 100%. Recently, there was a new case along these lines.

It is hard to imagine, but there is forced labor going on within the United States.

In this case, the plaintiffs are civil immigration detainees who are involuntarily confined at the government’s detention facilities under the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”). CoreCivic Inc. paid the plaintiffs between $0.75 and $1.50 per day and they also pressured them to perform work for free under threat of punishment. According to court documents, CoreCivic withheld basic living necessities such as soap, shampoo and toothpaste in order to coerce ICE detainees to work to earn money to purchase these items.

On April 1, 2020, a federal judge in San Diego certified both a California and National Forced Labor Class to go to trial against CoreCivic Inc., one of the largest private prison companies in the U.S., on whether these practices violate the law.

The Court found that detainees in detention centers were able to demonstrate that they were coerced into performing cleaning tasks in the facilities that went “beyond the personal housekeeping tasks,” as enumerated by ICE’s “Performance Based National Detention Standards.”

The case is ongoing. It is Owino et al. v. CoreCivic Inc., in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California.