Privately managed detention centers hold the majority of detained immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (\u201cICE\u201d) custody. Coerced\u00a0detainee labor in these for-profit facilities is commonplace. The practice contributes significantly to the financial viability of CoreCivic and GEO Group,\u00a0the two corporations which manage most ICE detention centers, but it violates the prohibition on forced labor contained in the 2000 Trafficking Victims\u00a0Protection Act (\u201cTVPA\u201d).<\/p>\n
Despite a growing field of scholarship on \u201ccrimmigration\u201d and proposals\u00a0to abolish immigration detention,\u00a0few scholars have examined the centrality\u00a0of forced labor to immigration detention. Instead, most scholarly analyses of\u00a0the TVPA have focused on its impact on labor trafficking, sex trafficking,\u00a0or on its extraterritorial application. Because practitioners, rather than scholars, were the first to recognize that the TVPA\u2019s prohibition of forced labor\u00a0applies to private detention centers, there has been little scholarly analysis of\u00a0the application of the TVPA to forced labor within detention facilities.<\/p>\n
This Article provides the first scholarly assessment of a wave of pending\u00a0class action lawsuits challenging forced labor in privately managed ICE\u00a0facilities under the TVPA. It concludes that such lawsuits are likely to succeed, given the facts known about conditions in for-profit immigrant detention facilities and the broad text and favorable legislative history of the TVPA. If the plaintiffs win a favorable jury verdict or a far-reaching settlement, the cases may cause fundamental changes to the current system of\u00a0mass immigration detention.<\/p>\n