A federal appeals court on Wednesday refused to give the operator of the immigrant detention center in Tacoma another chance to make its case for paying detainees as little as $1 per day as part of a work program.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the request from the GEO Group, the for-profit company that runs the facility, to reconsider its decision from earlier this year, siding with lower courts that found GEO violated state minimum wage law.

The decision affirms that the Florida-based GEO Group will need to pay more than $23 million that a jury and federal judge previously awarded. The next step in the company’s fight could be the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, brought by detainees and the state of Washington, has been ongoing since 2017.

GEO Group has run the Northwest I

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