A legal history of the dollar a day

By facebooker_10216095828121422

  • Fair Labor Standards Act

    President Franklin D. Rosevlet signs the Fair Labor Standards Act, setting the minimum wage and banning child labor. The act uses a broad definition of employee.

  • Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War

    The Geneva Convention determines that "prisoners of war who come to prison camps may be used for useful purposes and paid some small amount.” It also states that prisoners of war may not be forced to work.

  • Immigration Service Expenses Act

    Immigration Service Expenses Act of 1950, authorized paying those in immigration custody and sets the dollar a day rate. The department of justice directly refers to the 1949 Geneva Convention as a model for the bill.

  • Rate is reaffirmed in appropriations acts

    Congress reaffirms the dollar a day rate annually for 28 years, up through the 1978 Appropriations Act.

  • Voluntary work program removed from INS budget

    The Department of Justice proposes an increase to $4 a day for detained workers in the 1979 Appropriations Act, but it was not authorized by Congress. The final budget removes any reference to the rate of pay for detained workers. It is not mentioned in an appropriations act again.

  • First privately-run detention facility

    Corrections Corporation of America, now CoreCivic, enters it's first federal contract for an immigration detention facility in Houston, TX.

  • Court affirms undocumented immigratnts are covered by the FLSA

    An 11th circuit court affirms that undocumented workers are entitled to minimum wages and overtime pay for hours worked under the Fair Labor Standards Act in Patel v. Quality Inn South.

  • Court upholds dollar a day rate for detainees

    A 5th circuit court upholds the dollar a day payment for workers in government-run immigration detention in Alvarado Guevera v. INS. The court references the 1978 appropriations act. The court says that the Fair Labor and Standards Act does not apply because Guevera is held by the government and is "removed from American industry."

  • Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act

    Following the Oklahoma City bombings, committed by a U.S> citizen, Congress passes the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. These acts require mandatory detention of asylum seekers and noncitizens convicted on a broad array of offenses, including minor drug offenses. The daily population of ICE detainees increases fivefold in the 15 years following the act, from 7,475 to 33,330 by 2011.