A federal jury has determined that The GEO Group must pay nearly $17.3 million to immigration detainees who were paid $1 a day to perform tasks such as cooking and cleaning at the company’s for-profit detention center in Washington. . . . . GEO maintained that the detainees were not employees under the Washington Minimum Wage Act. Even if they were, the company said, it would be unlawfully discriminatory for Washington to require GEO to pay them minimum wage — now $13.69 an hour — when the state doesn’t pay minimum wage to inmates who work at its own prisons...