GEO Group Settles Cal/OSHA Complaint for $100K+ Over Detainee Worker Safety at Golden State Annex

GEO Group agreed to pay more than $100,000 to settle a landmark Cal/OSHA complaint over conditions at its Golden State Annex detention facility in McFarland, California, in a settlement signed in May and publicly announced July 7, 2026. California workplace safety inspectors opened the case in 2022 after complaints from advocates and detained immigrants working inside the facility's $1-a-day voluntary work program — covering tasks like cleaning, food preparation, and haircuts — alleging GEO failed to protect worker-detainees from COVID-19 spread and other hazards. As part of the settlement, GEO Group agreed to improve its disease-control plans and dropped its challenge to a prior state regulatory determination that the company is subject to California labor law — marking the first known instance of a state treating ICE detainees as employees and a detention operator as their employer under state labor statutes. GEO separately succeeded the prior month in getting ICE to update its own standards for detention contractors.