US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has quietly rewritten its detention standards, eliminating the $1-a-day pay requirement for immigrants held in private detention facilities.
Last week, ICE rewrote its national detention rules at the direct request of GEO Group, the country’s largest private prison company. GEO Group currently faces class action lawsuits in three states, where detainees are demanding minimum wage for the same work the new rules now exempt from pay requirements entirely.
Helping corporations avoid accountability for forced labor
ICE recently released its revised “National Detention Standards,” introducing changes they say will “reduce the burden” on detention operators nationwide.
At least 50 people have died in ICE detention or shortly after since the start of President Trump’s second term—and the new standards reduce facility liability in the event of further deaths.
GEO Group currently faces dozens of lawsuits—including class action suits in Washington, New Jersey, and Colorado—alleging labor law violations, “deplorable” health conditions, and beatings and retaliation by staff.
Truthout reports,
Reportedly, GEO Group asked ICE to remove regulations that called on contractors to follow state and local laws regarding the treatment of detained people, and to add language supporting GEO Group’s legal position – for example, stating that detainees are not employees at the facilities, thereby waiving the $1-a-day required pay. The new regulations also prevent facilities from paying above the $1-a-day amount — which has for years been decried as amounting to forced labor.
GEO also pushed for language clarifying that detainees are not employees of detention facilities.
Private corporations wrote the rules
GEO Group and CoreCivic are the top two private detention contractors in the US. And their influence runs deep. Both companies donated $500,000 each to Trump’s inaugural fund in December 2024. Meanwhile, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan and ICE acting director David Venturella both previously worked for GEO Group, which counts ICE as its largest customer. On GEO Group’s earnings call following the announcement, a participant congratulated executives on “the positive news.”
Both GEO Group and CoreCivic have seen record profits under the Trump administration’s mass detention expansion and now face lawsuits demanding they pay detainees state minimum wage. This includes a case alleging forced labor at an immigration detention center in Aurora, Colorado. GEO Group went to the Supreme Court to argue immunity from accountability, but the courts rejected the case.
These conditions have contributed to growing unrest inside detention centers, including protests and hunger strikes by detainees.
Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen called the pay program “an affront to every working individual” and said the new standards appear designed as “a gift to the for-profit contractors running detention centers.”
Who is ICE really protecting?
Beyond eliminating pay, the new standards allow AI to substitute for human interpreters in what ICE calls “non-critical communication”—a category that advocates say includes responses to detainee grievances, which often involve complaints about denied medical care. Requirements for in-person and telephone interpretation disappear entirely.
The standards also bar facilities from refusing to admit anyone ICE detains, meaning severely ill or disabled detainees may not receive immediate referrals to hospitals or appropriate care settings.
Critics are warning that the revised standards reduce accountability at a time when deaths in ICE custody are rising and the detention watchdog was dismantled.
Take a stand against corporate greed
As immigration detention expands, Freedom United continues to advocate for stronger oversight and accountability to prevent forced labor in for-profit prisons. When the companies profiting from detention help write the rules governing it, we must question whether detaining immigrants was ever about border policy.
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