United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

No. 19-50691

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

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

January 20, 2021

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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(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 

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3

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 under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).

II.

“In statutory interpretation disputes, a court’s proper starting point 

lies in a careful examination of the ordinary meaning and structure of the law 

itself.” Food Mktg. Inst. v. Argus Leader Media, 139 S. Ct. 2356, 2364 (2019).

Together, §§ 1589(a) and 1595 impose civil liability on “[w]hoever 

knowingly provides or obtains the labor or services of a person by any one of, 

or by any combination of” four coercive methods. 18 U.S.C. § 1589(a). See 

alsoid. § 1595 (civil remedy). CoreCivic contends that this language does not 

capture labor performed in work programs in a federal immigration detention 

setting.

But nothing in the text supports this claim. CoreCivic is clearly an 

entity covered by the term “whoever.” See 1 U.S.C. § 1 (defining 

“whoever” to include “corporations, companies, associations, firms, 

partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals”). 

It has clearly “obtain[ed]” the labor of these alien detainees. See Obtain, 

American Heritage Dictionary (5th ed. 2011) (defining “obtain” 

as “[t]o succeed in gaining possession of as the result of planning or 

endeavor; acquire”). And CoreCivic does not even try to dispute that the 

term “person” naturally encompasses alien detainees.

Instead, CoreCivic theorizes that, if we apply § 1589 to its work 

programs, then as night follows day, we must also apply it to parents who 

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compel their children to do ordinary household chores. The argument does 

not bear scrutiny. By that logic, a thief who steals a toy from a child could 

avoid a larceny conviction by claiming that no one would convict a parent for 

taking his child’stoy away for misbehavior. That argument would surely fail. 

And that is presumably because we do not construe criminal statutes like 

larceny or battery to reflexively apply to the parent-child relationship, but 

rather read them in light of parents’ well-established rights over their own 

children. Indeed, the Supreme Court has applied this principle to the 

Constitution, observing that “the Thirteenth Amendment was not intended 

to apply to ‘exceptional’ cases well established in the common law at the time 

of the Thirteenth Amendment, such as ‘the right of parents and guardians to 

the custody of their minor children or wards.’” United States v. Kozminski, 

487 U.S. 931, 944 (1988) (quoting Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 282 

(1897)). And the same logic applies here: Not every parent in America is a 

slaveowner, and not every parent in America is a human trafficker. As 

CoreCivic acknowledges, the Sixth Circuit had little trouble concluding that 

“forcing children to do household chores cannot be forced labor without 

reading [§ 1589] as making most responsible American parents and guardians

into federal criminals . . . . An American parent has always had the right to 

make his child perform household chores.” United States v. Toviave, 761 F.3d

623, 625 (6th Cir. 2014).

Alternatively, CoreCivic claims that § 1589 must be construed 

narrowly to cover only forced labor that arises in the international human 

trafficking context. To support that claim, it cites various Congressional 

findings that express concerns specific to international human trafficking. 

But the text of § 1589 itself is broad, and not limited to forced labor in the 

international human trafficking context.

CoreCivic also invokes Bond v. United States, 572 U.S. 844 (2014), for 

the proposition that “[p]art of a fair reading of statutory text is recognizing 

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that ‘Congress legislates against the backdrop’ of certain unexpressed 

presumptions.” Id. at 857 (quoting EEOC v. Arabian Am. Oil Co., 499 U.S. 

244, 248 (1991)). According to CoreCivic, one such “unexpressed 

presumption” is that detainees would continue to be subject to work 

requirements in the detention context.

But that overreads Bond. Bond concerns federalism and “the 

well-established principle that it is incumbent upon the federal courts to be 

certain of Congress’ intent before finding that federal law overrides the usual 

constitutional balance of federal and state powers.” Id. at 858 (cleaned up). 

See also Loughrin v. United States, 573 U.S. 351, 362 (2014) (same). Bond does 

not give courts a free-floating power to create statutory exemptions anytime 

a judge thinks Congress would have exempted a certain activity had anyone 

asked.

Because it lacks any serious textual argument, CoreCivic is forced to 

resort to extratextual considerations. It quotes extensively from the 

legislative history of the TVPA to bolster its argument that § 1589(a) applies 

only to international human trafficking—and thus not to work programs in 

federal immigration detention facilities. But legislative history cannot 

“‘muddy’ the meaning of ‘clear statutory language.’” Food Mktg. Inst., 139 

S. Ct. at 2364 (quoting Milner v. Dep’t of the Navy, 562 U.S. 562, 572 (2011)).

Finally, CoreCivic invokes the rule of lenity. But that canon of 

interpretation has force only where a law is “grievously ambiguous, meaning 

that the court can make no more than a guess as to what the statute means.” 

Shular v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 779, 789 (2020) (Kavanaugh, J., 

concurring). And § 1589(a) does not contain a categorical exemption—not 

even an ambiguous one—for work programs in detention facilities.

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* * *

Because on its face § 1589 unambiguously protects labor performed in 

work programs in federal immigration detention facilities, the “judicial 

inquiry is complete.” Rubin v. United States, 449 U.S. 424, 430 (1981). We 

affirm.1

1 Amicus curiae contends that it would be absurd to interpret the TVPA to 

impose liability for labor obtained pursuant to PBNDS-compliant, federally-contracted 

work programs. Amicus also argues that CoreCivic may have immunity as a 

government contractor. See, e.g., Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U.S. 153, 166

(2016); Ackerson v. Bean Dredging LLC, 589 F.3d 196, 204 (5th Cir. 2009). We express 

no view on these arguments. It may be that CoreCivic is immune from liability, or that 

it did not actually “obtain[]” Plaintiffs’ labor in a manner prohibited by the TVPA. But 

these questions are beyond the scope of the narrow question we accepted for 

interlocutory appeal—whether the TVPA “applies” to work programs in federal 

immigration detention facilities—and should therefore be addressed in the first 

instance by the district court.

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James C. Ho, Circuit Judge, concurring:

According to the dissent, we should resolve this appeal by deciding an 

issue not presented by the parties, either here or before the district court. But 

just last year, the Supreme Court rebuked the Ninth Circuit for doing just 

that—deciding an issue not presented by the parties, either on appeal or 

before the district court, without any compelling justification for doing so. 

See United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 140 S. Ct. 1575 (2020).

“In our adversarial system of adjudication, we follow the principle of

party presentation.” Id. at 1579. “[W]e rely on the parties to frame the 

issues for decision and assign to courts the role of neutral arbiter of matters 

the parties present.” Id. (quoting Greenlaw v. United States, 554 U.S. 237, 

243 (2008). “Our system ‘is designed around the premise that parties 

represented by competent counsel know what is best for them, and are 

responsible for advancing the facts and argument entitling them to 

relief.’” Id. (cleaned up) (quoting Castro v. United States, 540 U.S. 375, 386 

(2003) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment)). “In 

short: Courts are essentially passive instruments of government.” Id.

(cleaned up). “They do not . . . sally forth each day looking for wrongs to 

right. They wait for cases to come to them, and when cases arise, courts 

normally decide only questions presented by the parties.” Id. (cleaned up).

The dissent nevertheless insists that we should have reached the 

alleged pleading deficiency it has identified in this case. It accuses the 

majority of abdicating our judicial duty by answering only the question 

requested by the defendant and certified by the district court for 

interlocutory appeal. As the dissent puts it, “[w]e have no more right to 

decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is 

not given.” Post, at 13 (quoting Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264, 404 (1821)).

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But an appellate court is not required to go beyond the questions 

certified in an interlocutory appeal—and the dissent does not cite a single 

authority that says otherwise. To the contrary, the dissent’s authorities 

confirm that this is a matter of judicial discretion, not duty.

For example, the dissent relies on our en banc decision in CastellanosContreras v. Decatur Hotels, LLC, 622 F.3d 393 (5th Cir. 2010). But there we 

confirmed that this is a matter of discretion, not duty: “The conclusion that 

we have the power to consider these [unspecified] questions does not end our 

jurisdictional analysis. Interlocutory review under § 1292(b) is not 

mandatory; rather, it is discretionary. Thus, we must consider whether we 

should address these questions at this stage.” Id. at 399 (emphases added). 

And that conclusion is entirely compatible with Supreme Court precedent. 

Nothing in United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669 (1987), suggests that courts 

are ever duty-bound to decide an uncertified issue. And Yamaha Motor Corp. 

v. Calhoun, 516 U.S. 199 (1996), makes clear that an “appellate court may

address any issue fairly included within the certified order.” Id. at 205 

(emphasis added).

What’s more, the dissent is unable to cite a single case where our court 

did what it urges us to do here—that is, exercise our discretionary 

interlocutory jurisdiction to reach an issue not presented by the parties either 

before the district court or on appeal. None of the cases cited by the dissent 

support this kind of judicial adventurism—and certainly not in the face of the 

Supreme Court’s unanimous admonition in Sineneng-Smith.

1

1 For example, in Castellanos-Contreras, we went out of our way to explain that 

we were deciding an uncertified issue only because the parties had repeatedly pressed 

it: “[T]he parties have briefed the merits three times: to the original panel, in 

connection with the rehearing petitions, and in merits briefing to the en banc court. 

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So the idea that the dissent finds so abhorrent—“that we can choose, 

in our discretion, to limit ourselves to the question certified by the district 

court”—isn’t just some half-baked “theory.” Post, at 13. It’s the law.

* * *

To be sure, the party presentation principle is “supple, not ironclad.” 

Sineneng-Smith, 140 S. Ct. at 1579. “There are no doubt circumstances in 

which a modest initiating role for a court is appropriate.” Id. See also id. at 

1582–83 (listing some such circumstances).

“But this case scarcely fits that bill.” Id. at 1579. The defendant here, 

like the defendant in Sineneng-Smith, didn’t just fail to present the issue in 

question. It “presented a contrary theory of the case in the District Court.” 

Id. at 1581.

In the district court, CoreCivic admitted in its motion to dismiss that 

Gonzalez’s complaint “alleges she was threatened with ‘punishment, 

including but not limited to lockdown and/or solitary confinement’”—and 

conceded that that is “conceivably enough at this stage to allege a ‘threat of 

serious harm’ under [18 U.S.C. §§ 1589] (a)(2) and (a)(4).” So the dissent’s 

theory—that Gonzalez’s complaint fails because compliance with the 

PBNDS constitutes compliance with the TVPA, and so Plaintiff must 

separately allege a violation of the PBNDS in order to adequately plead a 

Additionally, this case has been the subject of two oral arguments. After so much time 

and effort has been expended by both the parties and the court as a whole, the 

discretionary decision now becomes much different, and the majority of the court agrees 

it should be resolved in favor of hearing the merits.” 622 F.3d at 399–400. So too in

Cazorla v. Koch Foods of Mississippi, L.L.C., 838 F.3d 540 (5th Cir. 2016), Luera v. M/V 

Alberta, 635 F.3d 181 (5th Cir. 2011), and Brabham v. A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc., 376 

F.3d 377 (5th Cir. 2004). The parties argued the unspecified issue before the district 

court and on appeal in Cazorla, 838 F.3d at 546–49, and Brabham, 376 F.3d at 379–80 

& n.2, and on appeal in Luera, 635 F.3d at 186–87.

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violation of the TVPA—is not just an argument that Defendant never made,

either before the district court or on appeal. It’s one that directly conflicts

with Defendant’s actual positions before the district court.

If anything, then, this is an especially weak case for disregarding the 

party presentation principle. Of course, if Defendant wishes to abandon its 

earlier position and pursue the pleading defect urged by the dissent, it may 

attempt to do so on remand—and the district court can determine in the first 

instance whether the issue is forfeited (or even waived) or remains open to 

litigation. As we have said on countless occasions, we are a court of review, 

not first view.

But this brings up yet another problem with deciding the unspecified 

issue on interlocutory appeal. Gonzalez has already asked the district court 

for leave to amend her complaint in the event it is found deficient. Even 

accepting, then, the dissent’s theory of pleading defect (and even setting 

aside the party presentation principle), I see no reason why we would deprive 

Gonzalez of the opportunity to amend her complaint, and the dissent offers

none. So whatever we do, we aren’t ending this litigation today—not under 

the majority’s theory or the dissent’s.

* * *

The approach proposed by the dissent is a marked departure from our 

established norms—both the principle of party presentation and the judicial 

discretion not to reach uncertified issues (particularly when no party has 

asked us to do so). The dissent disagrees with the majority’s adherence to 

these norms. But it should not be surprised by it. It’s what the Eleventh 

Circuit did in Barrientos v. CoreCivic, Inc., 951 F.3d 1269 (11th Cir. 2020)—a 

case involving the same defendant and the same specified issue on 

interlocutory appeal. And it’s what the Supreme Court instructed in 

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Sineneng-Smith—consistent with the proper, restrained role of the judiciary 

in our adversarial system of adjudication. I concur.

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Andrew S. Oldham, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

The majority and I agree that our jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1292(b) extends to the entire “order” we certified for interlocutory review. 

We disagree about whether to exercise that jurisdiction. I would exercise it 

and reverse. 

I.

I begin, as always, with jurisdiction and the statutory text. We have 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). The text provides:

When a district judge, in making in a civil action an order not 

otherwise appealable under this section, shall be of the opinion 

that such orderinvolves a controlling question of law as to which 

there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an 

immediate appeal from the order may materially advance the 

termination of the litigation, he shall so state in writing in such 

order. The Court of Appeals . . . may thereupon, in its 

discretion, permit an appeal to be taken from such order, if 

application is made to it within ten days after the entry of the 

order.

28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) (emphases added). The statutory text indicates that 

“appellate jurisdiction applies to the order certified to the court of appeals, 

and is not tied to the particular question formulated by the district court.” 

Yamaha Motor Corp. v. Calhoun, 516 U.S. 199, 205 (1996); see also United 

States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669, 677 (1987) (explaining that § 1292(b) “brings 

the ‘order,’ not the question, before the court”). Our en banc precedent is in 

accord. See Castellanos-Contreras v. Decatur Hotels, LLC, 622 F.3d 393, 398–

400 (5th Cir. 2010) (en banc). As is the leading federal courts treatise. See 16 

Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. 

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Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3929, at 454 (3d ed. 

2012) [hereinafter “Wright & Miller”] (“[T]he scope of the issues 

open to the court of appeals is closely limited to the order appealed from, but 

not to the specific stated question.”). Thus, our panel unanimously agrees 

that we can review the district court’s “entire order, either to consider a 

question different than the one certified as controlling or to decide the case 

despite the lack of any identified controlling question.” Yamaha, 516 U.S. at 

205 (quotation omitted).

Here, the district court denied CoreCivic’s motion to dismiss under 

Rule 12(b)(6). That’s the order the district court certified under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1292(b), and it’s the order we accepted for interlocutory appeal under that 

same provision. In the certified-and-accepted order, the district court 

identified what it thought was a controlling legal question—namely, whether 

CoreCivic is exempted from the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. But the 

text of § 1292(b), Yamaha, Stanley, Castellanos-Contreras, and Wright & 

Miller all say that we are not limited to the question identified by the 

district court. Again, our jurisdiction extends to “the order”—that is, the 

order denying CoreCivic’s motion to dismiss. 

The majority nonetheless says we have discretion not to exercise that 

jurisdiction. But cf. Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 404 (1821) 

(“We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is 

given, than to usurp that which is not given.”). The majority’s theory appears 

to be that we can choose, in our discretion, to limit ourselves to the question 

certified by the district court. 

There are courts that have such discretion, but ours is not one of them. 

For example, state courts have discretion to answer certified questions. See, 

e.g., Tex. R. App. P. 58.1. One reason why is because they’re not bound by 

Article III’s case-or-controversy requirement—which means they’re also 

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not bound by Article III’s prohibition on advisory opinions. See Letter from 

Chief Justice John Jay and the Associate Justices to President George 

Washington (Aug. 8, 1793), in 3 Correspondence & Public Papers 

of John Jay 488–89 (Johnson ed., 1891). If President Washington had 

asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court what to do about the Little Sarah and 

Citizen Genêt, he might’ve gotten an advisory opinion. But he chose to ask 

the U.S. Supreme Court, so all he got was a reminder that federal courts do 

only one thing: decide cases and controversies. See ibid.

We decide them not by answering abstract legal questions but by 

rendering judgments. As Justice Scalia once explained for the Court:

[T]he Framers crafted [Article III’s] charter of the judicial 

department with an expressed understanding that it gives the 

Federal Judiciary the power, not merely to rule on cases, but to 

decide them, subject to review only by superior courts in the 

Article III hierarchy—with an understanding, in short, that a 

judgment conclusively resolves the case because a “judicial 

Power” is one to render dispositive judgments.

Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211, 218–19 (1995) (quotation 

omitted). And when it comes to rendering judgments, we do not have 

discretion. We have to get the judgment right. Every time. 

Perhaps we could limit ourselves to the district court’s certified 

question when it’s sufficient to reach the correct judgment. For example, if 

the district court made two mistakes, we could exercise discretion to correct 

only the one certified by the district court. See Reese v. BP Expl. (Alaska) Inc., 

643 F.3d 681, 689–90 (9th Cir. 2011). But I do not understand how we could 

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affirm on the certified question where we’re convinced that a second, 

uncertified one would require reversal. *

That’s particularly true when we’re exercising jurisdiction under 

§ 1292(b). After all, § 1292(b) authorizes that jurisdiction where “an 

immediate appeal from the order may materially advance the ultimate 

termination of the litigation.” And it does nothing to advance the litigation—

in fact, it does the opposite—when we send a case to discovery in the face of

a deficient complaint. See Cazorla v. Koch Foods of Miss., L.L.C., 838 F.3d 

540, 548 (5th Cir. 2016) (reviewing an uncertified question where “fully 

addressing” the order could “hasten the end of th[e] already long-running 

litigation”); Brabham v. A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc., 376 F.3d 377, 380 n.2 (5th 

Cir. 2004) (reviewing an uncertified question where doing so would 

“expeditiously resolve” the litigation). In the interest of advancing the 

litigation as required by § 1292(b), our court has even extended review to 

questions that were neither briefed by the parties nor certified by the district 

court. See, e.g., Luera v. M/V Alberta, 635 F.3d 181, 186 (5th Cir. 2011)

* There are plenty of other examples where federal courts have discretion to 

exercise jurisdiction—for example, courts can certify questions to state courts or abstain 

under Pullman, Younger, Colorado River, &c. But of course, none of those entails entering 

an erroneous judgment. And even the most ardent proponents of jurisdictional discretion 

insist that it’s guided by some principle exogenous to the case or controversy. Compare

David L. Shapiro, Jurisdiction and Discretion, 60 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 543, 577–79 (1985)

(defending “principled discretion” in exercising jurisdiction, guided by “criteria drawn 

from the relevant statutory or constitutional grant of jurisdiction or from the tradition 

within which the grant arose”), with Martin Redish, The Federal Courts in

the Political Order: Judicial Jurisdiction and American Political 

Theory 47–74 (1991) (arguing failure to exercise jurisdiction cannot be reconciled with 

Congress’s lawmaking role), and Alexander Bickel, The Least Dangerous 

Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics 173 (1962) (arguing 

that, whatever jurisdictional discretion the Supreme Court might have, inferior federal 

courts must “resolve all controversies within their jurisdiction, because the alternative is 

chaos”).

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(addressing an unbriefed, uncertified question because resolving it could 

moot other questions).

II.

We unquestionably have jurisdiction over the district court’s entire 

order denying CoreCivic’s motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). Reviewing 

that order, I am convinced that plaintiff failed to state a claim. See Bell Atl. 

Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007); Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009). 

I would reverse and instruct the district court to dismiss the complaint.

A.

Gonzalez alleges that CoreCivic is operating (and the United States is 

paying for) a slave-labor camp. That claim implicates two statutes: one that 

authorizes detainee work programs and another that prohibits human 

trafficking. 

Let’s start with the statutory authorization. Congress has long 

authorized paid voluntary work programs for noncitizens in detention. See 8 

U.S.C. § 1555. Section 1555 authorizes the “payment of allowances to aliens, 

while held in custody under the immigration laws, for work performed.” 

Ibid.; see also Dep’t of Just. Appropriation Act, Pub. L. No. 95-86, 91 Stat. 

426 (1978) (setting pay rate for detainee work pursuant to voluntary work 

program at $1 per day). Such work programs are governed by Immigration 

and Customs Enforcement’s Performance-Based National Detention 

Standards. See Immigr. and Customs Enf’t, Performance Based National 

Detention Standards § 5.8, at 405–09 (2011) [hereinafter “PBNDS”]. The 

PBNDS allows detainees to “volunteer for work assignments” and 

guarantees monetary compensation of “at least $1.00 (USD) per day” for 

any work completed. Id. at 405, 407. PBNDS programs are purely voluntary: 

“Detainees shall be able to volunteer for work assignments but otherwise 

shall not be required to work, except to do personal housekeeping.” Id. at 

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405. CoreCivic operates PBNDS programs in Texas for the benefit of the 

United States and ICE.

On the extreme other end of the voluntariness spectrum is the 

Trafficking Victim Protection Act of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-386, 114 Stat. 

1464 (“TVPA”). Congress enacted the TVPA to prohibit slavery. See 22 

U.S.C. § 7101(a). The TVPA imposes criminal penalties on “[w]hoever 

knowingly provides or obtains the labor or services of a person by any one of, 

or by any combination of” threats, force, restraint, or threat of harm or abuse. 

18 U.S.C. § 1589(a), (d). Section 1595 permits “an individual who is a victim 

of a violation” to bring a civil action against the perpetrator to recover 

damages. Id. § 1595. Gonzalez alleges that CoreCivic’s PBNDS programs are 

not voluntary at all; in reality, she says, they’re slave-labor camps that entitle 

her to money damages under the TVPA.

Thus to state a claim, Gonzalez first must allege that CoreCivic 

violated the PBNDS. In the absence of such an allegation, PBNDS programs 

like CoreCivic’s are by definition voluntary. See PBNDS § 5.8 at 405. Then, 

assuming Gonzalez pleaded that CoreCivic’s work programs are involuntary, 

she must also allege that they violate the TVPA’s anti-slavery provisions.

B.

1.

Let’s start with Gonzalez’s purely conclusory allegations. These must 

be ignored altogether. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 680–81.

For example, Gonzalez claims that “CoreCivic owns forced labor 

camps” that treat detainees as a “slave labor force” to “amass profits and 

revenues.” She further claims that “CoreCivic’s acts were carried out with 

intent, malice, oppression, fraud and duress” with the only goal being profit 

maximization. The complaint alleges that CoreCivic’s business model is a 

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“go directly to jail and work for free” system, under which the company uses 

“egregious, unconstitutional, illegal and unfair labor practices” to 

“maximize its profits.” The complaint further explains that the company 

“made it very clear, through words and deeds, that unless the detainees 

worked, CoreCivic would increase their misery.” Gonzalez claims that these 

“draconian and harsh” conditions and the forced labor led to billions of 

dollars in revenue for CoreCivic, while causing “severe mental distress and 

anguish” to enslaved detainees. 

These conclusory allegations are insufficient to state a claim under 

Twombly and Iqbal. They boil down to little more than “formulaic recitation 

of the elements” of a claim under the TVPA—namely, that CoreCivic 

maliciously runs slave-labor camps focused on extracting free labor to bolster 

corporate bottom lines. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. The allegations fail not 

because of their fanciful nature, but instead because they contravene Twombly

and Iqbal by nakedly asserting conclusions. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 681; 

Twombly, 550 U.S. at 551.

2.

Not all of Gonzalez’s claims are so conclusory, however. For example, 

Gonzalez alleges that “detainees were forced to work, and if they refused, 

they were subjected to various punishments, including but not limited to 

solitary confinement and deprivation of facilities.” Specifically, Gonzalez 

claims that CoreCivic forced detainees to “clean the ‘pods’ where they were 

housed, and . . . clean, maintain, and operate other areas of the CoreCivic 

detention facilities under threat of punishment.” Gonzalez claims that she 

worked “virtually every day . . . in the kitchen, [and] sorting clothing” among 

other duties. According to Gonzalez, “CoreCivic continually” told 

“detainees that the work was voluntary” but subversively threatened them 

with punishment if they refused. This threatened punishment included 

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subjecting detainees to solitary confinement, denying them “toothbrushes 

and toothpaste,” and forcing them to “wait hours” for “sanitary or other 

feminine products.” 

Gonzalez plainly alleges that she was forced to work—but she does 

not allege that any of these requirements violated the PBNDS. For example, 

Gonzalez complains that she was required to clean her “pod” at threat of 

penalty. That isn’t helpful for showing CoreCivic’s liability under the TVPA 

because the PBNDS requires detainees to clean their private cells, and the 

PBNDS falls outside of the reach of the TVPA. See PBNDS § 5.8V(C), at 

406. Under the PBNDS, detainees’ refusal to clean their private areas can 

subject them to loss of commissary privileges to purchase personal hygiene 

items, and even to solitary confinement of up to 72 hours. See id. § 3.1 app. 

3.1.A, at 225–26. Gonzalez further claims that she worked in a variety of 

contexts and was paid between $1.00 and $2.00 per day. But the PBNDS 

plainly authorizes all of this under specified circumstances—and Gonzalez 

does not allege that CoreCivic ever exceeded the PBNDS’s disciplinary 

measures. 

Gonzalez also focuses on the alleged threats to detainees who refused 

to work. But the complaint doesn’t identify any particular instances of 

CoreCivic threatening detainees. See Morgan v. Swanson, 659 F.3d 359, 370 

(5th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (declining to adopt naked assertions “devoid of . . . 

factual enhancement” (quotation omitted)). Nor does it differentiate 

between alleged punishment for failing to perform work that a detainee has 

voluntarily assumed (as permitted by the PBNDS) and punishment for 

refusal to participate in the voluntary work program to begin with. Further, 

Gonzalez alleges that CoreCivic threatened her with the loss of certain 

personal items. But she does not allege that CoreCivic did so in violation of 

the PBNDS. And the PBNDS specifically authorizes CoreCivic to take away 

commissary privileges (and hence access to personal items) when detainees 

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commit disciplinary infractions. See PBNDS § 3.1 app. 3.1.A, at 226. Thus, 

Gonzalez’s threat allegations are at very most consistent with liability under 

the TVPA—and that’s insufficient to survive Rule 12(b)(6). See Iqbal, 556 

U.S. at 678; Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557. 

III.

Finally, a word about United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 140 S. Ct. 1575 

(2020). In that case, the Ninth Circuit appointed amici, invited them to brief 

and argue novel issues framed by the panel, and introduced legal questions 

never raised by either party at any point in the case. Id. at 1578. Then, based 

solely on questions injected into the case by the Ninth Circuit, the panel held 

a federal statute unconstitutional. See id. at 1581. The Supreme Court 

reversed because the Ninth Circuit affected a “radical transformation” of the 

case and violated the party-presentation principle. Id. at 1582.

My position is the opposite of Sineneng-Smith. That’s for at least two 

reasons.

First, I would follow the Supreme Court’s specific instructions in 

Yamaha and Stanley (as well as our en banc court’s instructions in 

Castellanos-Contreras). It would be quite something if following the Supreme 

Court’s instructions regarding § 1292(b) jurisdiction somehow violated the 

party-presentation principle. And far from urging anyone to hold 

unconstitutional a statute enacted by Congress, I would decide this case by 

respecting the statutes Congress enacted to regulate our jurisdiction and to 

bless voluntary work programs. 

Second, the parties have vigorously litigated the deficiencies in 

Gonzalez’s complaint. In its answer, CoreCivic argued that Gonzalez failed 

to state a claim. And in its motion to dismiss, CoreCivic alleged two 

infirmities in Gonzalez’s complaint. First, CoreCivic reasserted the absence 

of factual pleadings sufficient to withstand 12(b)(6) scrutiny. And second, the 

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motion to dismiss explained that Gonzalez failed to plead facts sufficient to 

make the necessary predicate finding that CoreCivic violated the voluntary 

work program expressly authorized by Congress in the Department of Justice 

Appropriation Act of 1978. It’s the denial of that Rule 12(b)(6) motion that’s 

before us today. 

* * *

Gonzalez alleges that a major government contractor conspired with 

the United States to enslave immigrant detainees. Stripped of its rhetoric, the 

complaint offers allegations that she was required to work at the direction of 

CoreCivic agents. But Gonzalez offers no allegations whatsoever that 

CoreCivic required her to do anything that the PBNDS did not require. That 

makes her complaint plainly insufficient. I would reverse.

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