After being sued for violating state-level human trafficking laws, the nation’s largest private prison company is pushing the US Supreme Court to grant private government contractors like itself blanket immunity from such lawsuits and many others.
This case — and another involving a military contractor — could deliver sweeping immunity to federal contractors if they get the ruling they want from the high court, allowing them to operate with even greater impunity than they already do.
The two cases have drawn little attention amid a slate of enormously consequential legal battles currently before the Supreme Court. But they offer a window into a decades-long fight by government contractors to avoid public accountability in court, a battle that has ramped up as the federal government has outsourced ever more of its operations to powerful private firms.
Leading the charge are for-profit vendors that work with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on immigration enforcement. Many of these private prison companies and security firms have histories of alleged physical, psychological, and sexual abuse — but often operate in the shadows, resisting public oversight. Private lawsuits are often one of the only ways left to hold these firms accountable.
More than a decade ago, the GEO Group, a private prison company with deep pockets and powerful allies in the Trump administration, was sued under Colorado law for forcing immigrants in its custody to work without pay. The GEO Group is a longtime contractor of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), DHS’s detention and enforcement arm. At ICE’s behest, the prison company now operates private immigration detention centers around the country under contracts worth billions.
While some of…
Auteur: Katya Schwenk
