New ICE Detention Standards Fail to Address Detainee Exploitation
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency released new “National Detention Standards” that alter some of the language regarding ICE’s so-called Voluntary Work Program (VWP). This program has permitted immigrant detainees to work at ICE facilities for a meager $1 a day pay, doing labor-intensive activities to maintain and run the detention facilities run by for-profit companies. Public Citizen issued a report last month called Private Profiteers that examined how these companies were profiting off of the $1 a day pay program.
The new ICE standard emphasizes that “detainees shall not receive a stipend exceeding the amount Congressionally allocated to ICE for reimbursing contract facilities in support of the Voluntary Work Program.” However, there has not been a program line item for the Voluntary Work Program in Congressional appropriations since 1979, according to an April 2026 article in the California Law Review. The measly $1 a day pay detainees have been paid has come from the general appropriations for immigrant detention centers. In July 2025, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill authorized $45 billion to expand detention capacity through FY2029, and ICE’s detention budget is roughly $14 billion annually. The new ICE standard does not mention the $1 a day pay for detainees in the Voluntary Work Program, as it has done in previous versions of its standards requirements. Instead, it vaguely mentions “reimbursement” for those in the VWP.
In response to the new standards, Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert issued the following statement:
“This new standard seems to disgracefully ratify a 1950s era policy of paying detainees just $1 per day pay for work they do inside detention centers.
“The $1 a day pay program is an affront to every working individual. The new standard appears to be intended as a gift to the for-profit contractors running detention centers, based on recent media reports. These corporations, which have seen record profits under the Trump administration’s mass immigration detention policy, are now facing lawsuits demanding they pay detainees the state minimum wage.”