immigrant detainee

In 2023, California regulators levied more than $100,000 in fines against the private operator of a federal immigration facility, kicking off a three-year battle over whether detainees who do work at the facilities should be considered employees.

The question went beyond semantics: If considered employees, the detainees would be subject to state worker protection laws.

A legal settlement announced this week now affirms that private immigrant detention facilities are subject to California’s workplace safety and health requirements.

“Every worker deserves a safe and healthy workplace and should be able to report workplace hazards without fear of retaliation,” said Denisse Gómez, spokesperson for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health or Cal/OSHA.

“Individuals who perform work in these facilities are entitled to workplace safety protections, and this settlement reinforces Cal/OSHA’s commitment to enforcing those protections and safeguarding vulnerable workers,” she added.

Under the settlement between California and the GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison company, the company recently withdrew its legal challenges and agreed to pay more than $100,000 in the fines.

The GEO Group did not respond to requests for comment.

Back in 2023, Cal/OSHA issued $104,510 in fines against the GEO Group. The agency had found six violations of state code by the company after detainees complained about a lack of protective equipment and proper training while cleaning the facility for $1 per day.

Detainees alleged they routinely wiped black mold off shower walls at the facility, saw black dust spew from air vents and used cleaning solutions that lacked instructions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The biggest fine levied against the GEO Group was for failure to establish and maintain “effective written procedures to reduce employee risk of exposure to aerosol transmissible disease.”

Advocates viewed Cal/OSHA’S recognition of the detainees as workers as a victory that could pave the way for future labor rights fights at other detention centers in the state.

But the GEO Group appealed, arguing that detainees participating in ICE’s voluntary work program make their own schedules and aren’t employees, so hazard exposure couldn’t be “as a result of assigned duties,” as California law states. Plus, the company argued, there wasn’t enough evidence that detainees were exposed to any hazard.

Early last year, the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board rejected the GEO Group’s argument and found that detainees should be considered “affected employees.”

The GEO Group sued, but three days before a California Superior Court hearing in May, the company and Cal/OSHA reached the settlement.

Along with paying the fines, the GEO Group agreed to draft plans for avoiding aerosol transmissions at 12 secure and reentry facilities in California, including five detention centers that hold immigrants.

“GEO ensures detainees are afforded the necessary tools, equipment, and personal protective equipment … to safely and effectively perform any necessary tasks,” the settlement states.

Gómez said the settlement also leaves intact the appeals board’s ruling that civil immigration detainees who participate in work programs can participate in proceedings anonymously, “acknowledging the potential for retaliation when individuals raise workplace safety concerns.”

But the question of whether detainees are employees and deserve certain protections isn’t entirely resolved — at least not for the federal government.

Last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released new standards for detention facilities across the country. The revised guidelines “emphasize that detainee volunteers participating in the voluntary work program are not considered facility and/or government employees” and thus not entitled to labor regulations.

Attorney Mariel Villarreal said the timing of the new detention standards made her question whether the GEO Group had asked ICE to specify in its standards that detainees are not workers in response to its battle with Cal/OSHA.

“To me, it’s a reaction to this very settlement,” she said. Villarreal works for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, which filed the original complaint on behalf of detainees who said they worked in unsafe conditions.

Villarreal pointed to a Washington Post report that GEO Group executives privately asked ICE to specify that detainees are not employees of the facilities where they work. Two top Trump administration officials, border czar Tom Homan and acting ICE director David Venturella, previously worked for the GEO Group.

New versions of ICE detention standards take effect as contracts are established or modified, so this year’s rules won’t immediately apply to every facility.

An ICE spokesperson did not comment about the settlement. The spokesperson, who did not provide their name in an emailed statement Wednesday, said the agency has begun transitioning detention facilities to meet the 2026 standards, “building on its longstanding commitment to safe, secure, and professional detention operations.”

“ICE has consistently implemented many of these best practices independently, reinforcing its role as the leader in detention operations,” the spokesperson added.

The GEO Group and other immigrant detention center operators have faced other legal battles over workers’ rights, including lawsuits in Washington, Colorado and California over the $1-per-day payment.

Villarreal said she’s confident that the Cal/OSHA settlement would continue to hold even if California facilities incorporated the new standards. But she said she believes the statements are an attempt by the GEO Group to “sidestep responsibility” and avoid the possibility of being fined under similar circumstances in other states.

“These statements in the new standards are a way for them to try and preserve profits as much as possible,” she said. “GEO and ICE are so intertwined at this point that they have the same motives.”

Brenda Jaimes pushed her way through an ecstatic crowd in downtown Santa Ana Thursday night, stopping in the middle of Fourth Street and calling attention to herself by shouting, “Me! Me!”

An hour earlier, Mexico beat South Korea 1-0 in the World Cup. Jaimes, a 22-year-old Santa Ana resident, was one of thousands of people who crowded into the neighborhood’s many bars and restaurants to watch the thrilling victory then spilled onto the streets to party.

Fans blew horns and spun noisemakers, chanting “México!” and “¡Sí se puede!” They brandished the Mexican flag seemingly everywhere: on banners, painted on cheeks, emblazoned on Jaimes’ tube top. They stood on the back of trucks and boogied.

An Orange County Fire Authority truck flashed its sirens to cheers. A line of drivers cruised down Fourth Street — the historic cultural and economic heart of Latino Orange County — to high-five the crowd and let people shake their cars as if everyone was inside a bounce house.

Jaimes wanted something more dramatic.

She lay down in the arms of some men wearing green Mexico soccer jerseys. They counted to three, launched her a good 8 feet upward, then effortlessly caught the laughing Jaimes.

Scenes like this replicated themselves across Southern California after the match, from Koreatown to Boyle Heights to Pacoima to Huntington Park — really, anywhere with a big Latino population. It happens any time Mexico wins big in soccer. But the pachanga was even more pronounced in Santa Ana.

A year earlier, Fourth Street was empty. Federal immigration agents were seizing people across the city. The National Guard set up a roadblock complete with an armed Humvee for over a month, just a block away from where Jaimes and so many others celebrated.

One of the most Latino big cities in the country trembled in fear. On Thursday night, Santa Ana erupted in joy.

“This here is the antithesis of the raids last year,” said Sandra De Anda, who wore a Stetson and a Tigres Mexican soccer club jersey and waved a South Korea flag. She’s the director of policy and legal strategy at the Orange County Rapid Response Network.

Last June, the Santa Ana native joined thousands as they marched down Fourth Street for days demanding that ICE and the National Guard leave town. Through the rest of 2025, she and others in the Rapid Response Network fought la migra in courthouses and through fundraisers for immigrant detainees and their loved ones.

“They tried to take our community down, but they had no chance,” De Anda added as her boyfriend rushed off to join the celebration. “We Mexicans always get beat down, but we have pride. Tonight, you see how we stand up when we need to.”

Jaimes agreed.

“It’s so important to do this especially after last year,” she told me after her short turn as a Cirque du Soleil performer. “We don’t care what Trump can say about this. It was his birthday recently — who cares? This right here is real.”

Another young woman shrieked as she sailed above us. Jaimes pointed at her, then looked at me. “Throw yourself también [also], bro!”

I stuck to slapping the hoods and windows of so many cars that my hand turned black with soot.

Mexico soccer fans shake a car cruising down Fourth Street in downtown Santa Ana after Mexico’s 1-0 World Cup win over South Korea on Thursday.

(Gustavo Arellano / Los Angeles Times)

Seeing Mexico become the first country to win its World Cup group would be thrilling any year. But in 2026, when Trump continues to meddle in Latin American affairs while his migra goons keep launching raids across the country, the satisfaction hits that much more.

Few things irk Trump and his followers more than Mexicans succeeding at anything. Eleven years ago this week, he announced his presidential campaign by stating that Mexico was “not sending its best” immigrants but instead, people he claimed were mostly rapists and drug dealers. Trump has spent his two terms obsessing over the U.S.-Mexico border, attacking anything that reeks of diversity and demeaning Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as if she were a junior executive at one of his many failed companies.

Conservatives and more than a few liberals always get furious when Mexican Americans wave the flag of their ancestral homeland — but rooting for Mexico’s soccer team especially brings out the venom. Fans far outnumber supporters of the U.S. soccer team during matches in this country, which brings on accusations of treason against Mexican Americans even though other diasporas do the same, with nowhere near the same opprobrium.

Haters don’t get why so many Mexican Americans root for El Tri. The team embodies what it means to be Mexican: They’re a good group of folks who always seem to get bad breaks and never seem to win against the powers that be — but never stop fighting for a better day, while having fun doing so.

That’s why Americans of all ethnicities should back Mexico along with the U.S. side in this World Cup, which Trump has already sullied. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security denied a Somali referee entry into this country because he allegedly was “talking to some very bad people,” per the White House World Cup task force. The Trump administration is forcing Iran’s squad to base its training camp in Tijuana, which means players have to fly to matches in Los Angeles and Seattle instead of taking every other team’s short bus trip.

Every Mexico victory should give solace to the underdogs of the world and affirm the belief that a communion of nations engaged in friendly rivalries is better than Trump’s proclivity for launching indiscriminate raids and bombings. To cheer for Mexico is about as American as you can get right now.

Sydney Tran took her turn at the Fourth Street procession in a Honda Civic packed with friends. The crowd shook her car with such vigor that the 23-year-old Westminster resident couldn’t turn up the music like people shouted at her to do.

“This is crazy!” yelled Tran, who wore a Mexico soccer jersey. “I’m Vietnamese, but this is wonderful to see my Mexican friends so happy. They deserve to be happy — it’s been rough for them. It’s been rough for all immigrants.”

Mexico fans celebrate a goal while watching a FIFA World Cup soccer Group A matchup between Mexico and South Korea in Boyle Heights on Thursday.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The festivities were still going strong when I left. Restaurants that were usually closed by 10 p.m. had lines out the door. Dance parties sprouted on sidewalks. Rancheras, funk and oldies blasted everywhere. The police were nowhere to be seen, unlike last year, when they broke up the anti-ICE protests with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Cynicism shot through me for a second. Mexico, which won on a fluke goal and two miraculous saves, stands virtually no chance of beating soccer titans like France and Argentina once the knockout stage of the World Cup begins. Trump’s immigration team vows that more raids are forthcoming. And I can only hope that the overwhelmingly young crowd will take the passion they showed for Mexican soccer to the ballot box this November.

Then I chilled out.

Everyone around me got to breathe and scream and let out their frustrations about our nation in the most delightful way imaginable. Reality would return the next morning — but for one night, for a few hours, life was wonderful for Mexican Americans, and better days ahead seemed possible. Sí se puede, indeed.