Case: 19-50691 Document: 00515712776 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/20/2021 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit FILED January 20, 2021 No. 19-50691 Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Martha Gonzalez, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiff—Appellee, versus CoreCivic, Incorporated, Defendant—Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas USDC No. 1:18-CV-00169 Before Smith, Ho, and Oldham, Circuit Judges. James C. Ho, Circuit Judge: Judges are not legislators. Legislators write laws—judges faithfully interpret them. So if a party wishes to have its activities exempted from a statute, it must ask the Legislature to enact such an exemption, not the judiciary. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) imposes civil liability on “[w]hoever knowingly provides or obtains the labor or services of a person” by certain coercive means. 18 U.S.C. § 1589(a). See also id. § 1595 Case: 19-50691 Document: 00515712776 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/20/2021 No. 19-50691 (civil remedy). CoreCivic claims its work programs categorically fall outside the reach of this forced-labor prohibition. But the text of the Act contains no such detainee-labor exemption. CoreCivic simply theorizes that Congress would not have wanted the law to reach work programs like the ones it runs. We agree with the district court as well as the Eleventh Circuit in rejecting this theory and therefore affirm. See Barrientos v. CoreCivic, Inc., 951 F.3d 1269, 1276–78 (11th Cir. 2020). I. CoreCivic is a private company that operates detention facilities holding alien detainees on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). As part of its contract with ICE, CoreCivic provides a work program for the detainees. See U.S. Immigration & Customs Enf’t, Performance-Based National Detention Standards 2011 § 5.8(I), (V) (PBNDS). The PBNDS requires these work programs to be voluntary. Id. at § 5.8(II)(2). But according to Martha Gonzalez, a former detainee, CoreCivic’s work programs are not voluntary. In truth, she says, CoreCivic forced her to clean the detention facilities, cook meals for company events, engage in clerical work, provide barber services for fellow detainees, maintain landscaping, and other labors. And if she refused, the company would impose more severe living conditions, including solitary confinement, physical restraints, and deprivation of basic human needs such as personal hygiene products. CoreCivic moved to dismiss on the ground that the TVPA does not regulate “labor performed by immigration detainees in lawful custody.” Or to rephrase it more bluntly, that its activities are categorically exempt from the TVPA. The district court denied the motion, concluding that the plain terms of § 1589(a) cover labor conducted by immigration detainees in a 2 Case: 19-50691 Document: 00515712776 Page: 3 Date Filed: 01/20/2021 No. 19-50691 private detention center. See Gonzalez v. CoreCivic, Inc., 2019 WL 2572540, at *2 (W.D. Tex. Mar. 1, 2019). The district court then granted CoreCivic’s motion to certify the following question for interlocutory appeal: “Whether the TVPA applies to work programs in federal immigration detention facilities.” We agreed to accept the appeal ...
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