The Supreme Court seemed unsympathetic to a private prison operator’s appeal in a lawsuit alleging that some of its immigration detainees were illegally made to work for $1 a day.

In the Nov. 10 oral argument in GEO Group Inc. v. Menocal, the justices examined rules governing civil litigation, as opposed to the labor issue that is the focus of the lawsuit.

Lead respondent Alejandro Menocal, who was previously an immigration detainee at a GEO Group facility in Colorado, filed a class action against the company. He argues GEO violated the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which forbids forced labor, as well as Colorado’s ban on unjust enrichment, according to Menocal’s brief filed on April 21.

Unjust enrichment means a defendant received a benefit at the plaintiff’s expense, and it would be unfair for the defendant to keep the benefit without paying for it.

GEO argues it is entitled to derivative sovereign immunity, also known as Yearsley immunity.

Sovereign immunity is a legal doctrine that prevents governments from being sued unless they consent. Derivative sovereign immunity extends sovereign immunity to companies contracted to do government work. This kind of immunity was established in the Supreme Court’s 1940 ruling in Yearsley v. W.A. Ross Construction.

In the brief, Menocal’s attorneys said that under Yearsley, “contractors have a defense to liability for damages caused by ‘lawfully’ carrying out work that is ‘authorized and directed’ by the government.”

For operating the Aurora Immigration Processing Center, an immigration detention facility, the federal government pays GEO millions of dollars a year to cover food preparation, laundry, sanitation, and building maintenance, the brief said.

“But GEO didn’t perform the work itself: It required those detained in its facility to do it,” it added.

The brief said those who declined to perform janitorial work were told they would “be sent to ‘the hole’—solitary confinement.”

Detainees who performed the work were rewarded by not being sent to solitary confinement and being paid a dollar a day, the brief said.

A federal district court ruled in October 2022 that “neither derivative sovereign immunity nor the government contractor defense protect [GEO] from liability,” but did not complete the trial.

In October 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit affirmed the ruling.

GEO’s position is that it is entitled to Yearsley immunity and should be allowed to appeal the finding on immunity.

At the oral argument on Nov. 10, U.S. Department of Justice attorney Sopan Joshi said the order at issue in the case is “not the kind of order that is immediately appealable as a final decision.”

GEO attorney Dominic Draye said contractors that follow the government’s instructions “are immune from suit for the same reason government employees are immune. That is, they are doing the sovereign’s work.”

Contractors enjoy immunity when what they do is “within the constitutional power of Congress” and their work is carried out “in compliance with all federal directions,” he said.

In this case, because a lower court found that the contractor failed to meet the conditions required for immunity, that order may be appealed even before a trial is completed, Draye said.

Justice Clarence Thomas asked the attorney to “show us the language in Yearsley that indicates … this immunity from suit.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked Draye, “Why isn’t Yearsley better understood as a defense than an immunity?”

Jackson said GEO would not qualify for the Yearsley defense “because I thought the government would have to have the authority to issue the instructions, and to the extent the instructions violated the law, they wouldn’t be authorized.”

In a discussion with Draye, Justice Elena Kagan said the rationale behind Yearsley was that “I’m following the government’s instructions and the government’s instructions are lawful, so obviously everything I did was lawful, too.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh told Draye that the fact that the federal government is not supporting GEO in this appeal “casts doubt on your assertion.”

Menocal’s attorney, Jennifer D. Bennett, said GEO can’t succeed with its argument that “Yearsley is the rare defense that provides a right to avoid litigation entirely.”

Justice Samuel Alito said that if Bennett’s clients had sued U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “and specific ICE officials,” they would have been able to argue sovereign immunity and qualified immunity.

Qualified immunity, a rule created by the courts, shields government officials from individual liability unless the wrongdoer violated a clearly established right.

“And if the district court denied any of those, then they could get an interlocutory appeal. So why shouldn’t the rule be the same for GEO?” Alito said.

An interlocutory appeal is an appeal of a non-final order of a trial court before the entire case is completed.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case by the end of June 2026.

This article by Matthew Vadum appeared Nov. 13, 2025, in The Epoch Times.