The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday in a class-action lawsuit against Aurora’s immigration detention center, considering a legal question in the more-than-decade-old case that accuses the facility of enacting a system of forced labor.
Filed on behalf of nine now-former detainees, the 2014 lawsuit accuses the private prison company that runs the facility of forcing random detainees to clean parts of the facility for free. If they refused, the lawsuit alleges, detainees — meaning immigrants without proper legal status — faced solitary confinement.
But the high court’s justices aren’t set to weigh in on the primary allegations in the suit when they convene Monday morning. Instead, they’ll consider a denser legal question. The company that owns the facility, the Geo Group, has tried to argue that it has immunity from the litigation as a government contractor. But a federal judge rejected that defense.
Geo then appealed, but in late 2024, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — the federal appellate court overseeing Colorado — declined to overturn the lower court’s ruling. Its judges wrote that Geo couldn’t appeal the ruling while the broader lawsuit was still underway.
That’s the question that the U.S. Supreme Court will consider: whether Geo can appeal now.
The Geo Group asked the high court to intervene earlier this year, citing conflicting rulings from judges across the country on similar questions. If the Supreme Court sides with the company, the justices then would likely tell the 10th Circuit’s judges to circle back to the immunity question and decide if Geo can argue that it’s innoculated against facing the allegations.
Though complex, Monday’s arguments represent the latest incremental step in an 11-year-old legal saga. So old is the case that four of the Supreme Court’s current justices hadn’t been appointed when it was filed. Nearly 40 attorneys have filed to represent one party or another while the case has been pending. The Geo Group has filed multiple appeals — including an earlier request to the Supreme Court that was rejected.
“We’re looking forward to the opportunity to argue before the Supreme Court,” said David Seligman, a Denver attorney who is one of the lawyers representing detainees. “This case has been going on since 2014, and we and our clients are deeply frustrated by Geo’s efforts to continue delaying this litigation. All we want is the opportunity to have our claims vindicated in court.”
The Geo Group did not respond to an email seeking comment late last week, but its attorneys wrote in a filing with the Supreme Court: “The Tenth Circuit’s decision is the latest addition to a deep division in the circuit courts as to whether a denial of derivative sovereign immunity is an appealable collateral order.”
The Trump administration has asked to participate in the Supreme Court case and will argue on the same side as the detainees’ attorneys, against Geo’s appeal claims.
Immigration policy — and its enforcement — has undergone radical shifts in the country during the course of the litigation. Amid President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation efforts, the Aurora facility’s capacity has expanded to its full potential of more than 1,500 detainees. The Trump administration is also planning to expand its capacity in the state by reopening a private prison northeast of Denver for immigration detention. That facility was previously operated by Geo.
The work policy that the lawsuit challenges is still in place, said Andrea Loya, the executive director of Casa De Paz, a nonprofit group that works with detainees and their families.
“Unfortunately, that is still the same,” she said, adding that some current detainees protested the policy earlier this year.
According to the lawsuit and subsequent legal filings, officers in the Aurora facility have randomly selected six detainees from each of its housing pods every day. Those people have been required to clean the entire pod. If they repeatedly refuse, they “face a range of possible sanctions, including disciplinary transfer, solitary confinement for up to seventy-two hours, suspension of privileges, reprimand, and warning,” Chief Judge Jerome A. Holmes wrote in the 10th Circuit’s ruling last year.
When the case was first filed, the detainees’ lawyers also challenged Geo’s voluntary work program, in which detainees cook, clean, do laundry and maintain the facility’s landscaping for $1 a day. The attorneys argued that the practice violated minimum wage laws.
But U.S. District Court Judge John L. Kane rejected that claim, finding that the detainees weren’t employees and that Geo wasn’t their employer.
Other courts have ruled otherwise. In a separate lawsuit filed in Washington state against another Geo-run immigration detention center, a jury awarded nearly $17.3 million in back wages to detainees who participated in the voluntary work program, and a judge added nearly $6 million more in penalties, according to the Washington State Standard. The state Supreme Court and a federal appellate court both sided with the detainees.
In an earnings call Thursday, George Zoley, the executive chairman of Geo’s board, said the company had also appealed that decision to the U.S Supreme Court.
“No company has ever paid state minimum wages to individuals working in confinement facilities,” he said.
The company reported $173.9 million in net income for its third quarter and $222.5 million for the first nine months of 2025.
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