Wages

For more than a quarter-century, a lawsuit settlement from a case brought in Los Angeles federal court has dictated conditions for children held in immigration detention.

But now, the long-standing settlement — which set minimum standards for housing, education and medical care for migrant kids in federal custody, while strictly limiting how long they can remain there — hangs in the balance in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after a challenge by the Trump administration.

At the same time, the federal judge in L.A. who presides over the agreement appears poised to appoint a powerful new enforcer to uphold it.

President Trump has long sought to scrap the Flores settlement, which dates back to the Clinton era. In recent months, the Trump administration has waged a legal battle to cancel the agreement, while also pleading with the district court not to order an independent monitor to boost its compliance.

“[Flores] is the only thing standing between them and indefinite detention of families,” said Leecia Welch, chief legal director at Children’s Rights, a plaintiff in the case.

Last month, Assistant Atty. Gen. Brett A. Shumate pressed the 9th Circuit court to give the administration “the thumbs-up or thumbs-down” on its bid to tear up the settlement and end what he called “judicial micromanagement” of federal immigration policy.

“The Flores consent decree is an agreement which goes well above the constitutional floor,” Shumate told the court during oral arguments in June. “We’re asking that [the Department of Homeland Security’s] compliance with the law be assessed based on the law, not a 30-year-old settlement agreement.”

The three-judge panel sharply questioned the Justice Department’s legal claims, saying little had changed since the government last petitioned the court to have the agreement dissolved in 2020 — a request that was rejected.

The judges also pressed Trump administration lawyers to respond to evidence from scores of declarations filed in district court since last summer, in which detainees describe struggling to sleep in freezing, brightly lit rooms, vomiting from eating spoiled food, and begging for diapers, baby formula and asthma inhalers.

“You’ve said a lot of the reason you’re doing this is to discourage families from coming in the first place, so you’re basically punishing children because their parents brought them here,” Judge Marsha S. Berzon said.

Berzon, a Clinton appointee who issued a fiery dissent last year in a case that challenged the administration’s use of armed troops in immigration enforcement operations, asked: “You’re saying there’s no constitutional problem there?”

“I understand the detention of children at the border is a controversial policy issue, but that’s a policy decision,” Shumate said.

Just a day earlier, Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee scolded a pair of government attorneys from her bench in Los Angeles, signaling she would probably appoint a new special master to force compliance with the settlement agreement.

“We’re talking about 11 years of this,” Gee said during the June 1 status conference. “None of these issues are new to me. These are all issues on which I have issued orders. I am very displeased about the fact that my orders are being disregarded and are not being complied with, not in good faith.”

“Both sides seem to be operating in different planes of reality,” Gee said.

The disputed settlement emerged from a 1985 lawsuit over the fate of 15-year-old Jenny Flores, a Salvadoran refugee who was picked up by federal immigration enforcement and left to languish in detention in Pasadena. At the time, there was little awareness that children were among the tens of thousands of migrants fleeing civil war and state collapse in Central America — with virtually no U.S. government infrastructure to protect them.

“It was a surprise,” said Benjamin Roth, a professor at the University of South Carolina College of Social Work and an expert on the agreement. “There was no thought then that there were kids in this mix.”

The current court fight centers on an immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas, run by the private prison company CoreCivic, where the vast majority of children and families in immigration custody are held.

In court filings earlier this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it has “maintained core Flores-related services” at Dilley and argued its length-of-stay numbers were skewed by a small number of families it was forced to keep because they are considered “national security risks.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection likewise boasted its July 1 report “shows our highest level of compliance to date.”

Immigrant rights advocates called those claims “a fiction.”

“We see the same sorts of problems and concerns and misery that we’ve been seeing for the last 15 months,” said Welch, the Children’s Rights attorney.

In dozens of declarations collected as part of the court record, detainees recounted broccoli full of worms, diapers doled out one at a time, and staff tearing up children’s drawings.

One mother said medical staff laughed off her 8-year-old’s broken arm. Another said she was denied treatment for hepatitis B, even after doctors told her she could develop liver cancer and pass the infection on to her unborn daughter.

Still others described unexplained rashes, outbreaks of diarrhea and infestations of lice, among a host of other maladies for which many said they were offered only Tylenol or allergy medication. Even Christmas brought misery in the form of an ICE agent dressed up as Santa, who shoved away children trying to hug him, according to the detainee declarations submitted to the court.

“What happened on Christmas Day can only be described as an atrocity,” one mother recalled. Children “dropped everything, ran up to him, begged for candy and wanted to take pictures. Some children even cried and begged him for their freedom. Santa himself acted very indifferent.”

The Department of Justice argued that immigrant kids could still sue over poor conditions if the Flores settlement is unwound. But experts say existing protections would collapse without the legal architecture of the consent decree to support them.

“[Under the settlement], the federal government has built out a very efficient system to provide temporary care for kids,” Roth said. “If Flores is dissolved, it’s not going to be easy to stand up this same set of programs.”

If the Trump administration loses before the 9th Circuit, the fight over Flores could soon escalate to the Supreme Court.

“I’d be shocked if the 9th Circuit rules for the government, and I’d be shocked if the Trump administration doesn’t appeal,” said Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University and an expert on the high court.

But consent decrees are legally and politically complicated, and the treatment of migrant children further tangles the situation. Given the legal and political complexity, the Supreme Court could rule to keep the settlement in place, or decline to take the case at all, experts said.

“It’s more likely than not the court would stay away from this,” Segall said.

For now, both the district judge and the 9th Circuit panel appear fed up.

“I think my patience has come to an end,” Gee said during the recent hearing in her Los Angeles courtroom.

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.”

Caracas, June 23, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Thousands of retired workers from Venezuelan state telecommunications company CANTV have staged protests in recent days to demand the restoration of a monthly “income complement” payment.

On Thursday, CANTV suspended the US $200 monthly payment with no prior notice. The measure prompted emergency rallies outside the firm’s headquarters in Caracas, Barquisimeto, Valencia, and several other Venezuelan cities on Friday.

Active workers received the bonus as scheduled, though many joined the protests in solidarity.

The cutback reportedly affected around 10,000 retirees for whom the bonus represents over 70 percent of their monthly income. Many told reporters that the unjustified cutback placed an immediate strain on day-to-day survival, especially for those suffering from chronic illnesses.

The swift grassroots response prompted the company to backtrack and pay the retired workers $150 over the weekend. The CANTV retired workers’ plight also drew support from the World Federation of Trade Unions.

“The company thought that we would be the weakest link in their bid to cut costs at the workforce’s expense,” retiree Arturo Morgado told Venezuelanalysis. “But the protests all over the country told a different story.”

Monday saw around 300 workers demonstrate again outside CANTV headquarters in Caracas. A commission from FETRAJUTEL, a trade union representing the firm’s retired workforce, met with the CANTV board but received no commitment that the remaining $50 will also be paid. 

The announcement led protesters to temporarily block Libertador Avenue in central Caracas, vowing to maintain the pressure until the full bonus is restored.

“We are going to continue fighting, for the entire bonus and for other rights established in our collective bargaining agreement, including financial support for medical expenses and incomes that cover the cost-of-living,” Morgado added. “The company put these commitments in writing in a meeting with unions in late 2023.”

The former CANTV technician highlighted the “moral strength and honesty” of the retired workforce and warned that the present bonus-over-wage government policies leave workers vulnerable to discretionary cuts. Morgado’s social security pension is worth 570 bolívars per month, less than $1 at the present exchange rate.

With the Venezuelan economy heavily sanctioned by the US, the Nicolás Maduro government increasingly turned to non-wage bonuses while letting the minimum wage continuously devalue. Trade unions have criticized the policy for cheapening labor costs for employers and contravening the existing labor law.

Since taking over in January, after the US kidnapping of Maduro, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has maintained the policy. On May 1, she increased the minimum monthly income for public sector workers to the official bolívar-equivalent of $240 a month, while pensioners received $70. Public sector retirees are entitled to $170 monthly, but in certain cases, like CANTV, they have secured improvements in direct negotiations with the company.

The labor dispute comes amid a controversial effort by the Rodríguez administration to “reengineer and restructure” the Venezuelan state, including public companies such as CANTV. The state telecoms provider was privatized in 1991 under the terms of IMF-imposed structural adjustment and partially acquired by a consortium headed by GTE, today Verizon. CANTV was re-nationalized by the Hugo Chávez government in 2007 and is currently under the purview of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Education Minister Héctor Rodríguez, tasked by Miraflores with leading the state reform commission, recently sought to allay fears of massive public sector layoffs. He instead  suggested that workers might be “strategically relocated and retrained” in order to improve the public sector efficiency.

The acting administration has likewise launched a process to determine the “strategic” value of state-owned assets. A commission, featuring government officials and private sector representatives, will recommend whether the state should retain ownership of firms, land estates, and other assets or open them for privatization.

Financial advisory group Orinoco Research identified CANTV as a prime candidate for privatization, while libertarian think tank CEDICE Libertad called the prior sale of the telecom company a “model to replicate.” The 1991 privatization was followed by a process of asset stripping that dismantled the firm’s regionally advanced technical base and institutionalized outsourcing and arbitrary firings.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.