Thousands of immigrant detainees were paid $1 per day or, in some cases, with extra food as compensation for keeping one of the country’s largest for-profit immigration detention centers running, according to a lawsuit filed today by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson. The lawsuit targets the GEO Group, one of the country’s two most profitable private prison companies, over the controversial work program, which Ferguson says has violated the state’s minimum wage policy since it was implemented in 2005. Each day, Tacoma’s Northwest Detention Center houses up to 1,575 detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody as they wait for deportation or to appear before a judge to resolve their immigration case.