GEO Group v. Menocal Brief: Don’t Extend Judicial Shortcuts to Government Contractors Accused of Human Trafficking

This month, the Cato Institute joined an amicus curiae brief filed with the US Supreme Court, arguing that the GEO Group should not be allowed a pretrial appeal in a lawsuit, as ruled by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. 

GEO Group, the petitioner, makes billions of dollars a year operating private immigration detention facilities. The company allegedly forced every person detained at the Aurora Immigration Processing Center in Aurora, CO, to perform unpaid janitorial work, threatening that, if they refused, they would be sent to “the hole”—solitary confinement. In addition, GEO allegedly fulfilled its other staffing needs through a “voluntary work program.” Although technically voluntary, many people detained at the Center had little choice but to participate. 

Working for GEO was the only way they could earn money to buy food and toiletries from the commissary or make phone calls while detained. These were not luxuries: The “inadequate” meals GEO reportedly served left those in its care “chronically hungry”—unable to get enough to eat without “voluntarily” working for GEO. Initially, the company paid these workers “$1.00 per day and a bottle of soda once a week.” GEO later reduced that to just $1 a day.

Over a decade ago, the respondents filed a lawsuit, alleging that GEO subjected them to human trafficking. The case has yet to go to trial in part because GEO sought a pretrial appeal under a doctrine that shields government contractors from liability for actions that were authorized and directed by the government. The Tenth Circuit held that GEO cannot appeal yet because the district court has not reached a final decision in the case. The Supreme Court has decided to review that ruling.

Cato joined a brief filed by the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center and the Institute for Justice. The brief urges the Supreme Court to affirm the Tenth Circuit. Judges have crafted numerous textually and historically baseless legal doctrines to advantage government officials in litigation. As illegitimate as these doctrines are when applied to actual government bureaucrats, it would be even worse to let private actors share in them, as GEO attempts to do here. 

GEO should not be allowed to take a shortcut to the appellate courts rather than face the respondents at trial.