Will Sen. Kyrsten Sinema keep CoreCivic donation after it settled forced-labor lawsuit?

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema so far is staying silent about a political campaign donation she took from CoreCivic, the private prisons and detention center operator, as that company battles litigation over its alleged use of forced labor.

CoreCivic announced Thursday that it had reached a settlement to end one of the three forced labor lawsuits it is facing. The lawsuit, brought by several former detainees, alleged that the company coerced them and other migrants into participating in an ostensibly voluntary work program at a CoreCivic detention center in Georgia.

Sinema, I-Ariz., is among five U.S. lawmakers who this year accepted the maximum donation of $5,000 from CoreCivic's political action committee.

In the past, Sinema has returned campaign donations when controversies arose about the donors. When running in 2017, Sinema donated more than $10,000 that the campaign had received from owners of the website Backpage.com after they were accused of knowingly promoting ads offering sex with underage girls.

Likewise, in 2018, she quietly donated $33,800 to charity. That was the amount she took from Ed Buck, a prominent Democratic donor who came under scrutiny after a male escort died of a drug overdose at his California home.

A Sinema spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The Democratic Party, which Sinema belonged to until she switched her party affiliation to independent last year, supports ending the use of private prisons and immigration detention centers in its current platform.

Sinema's donations: Sinema among top takers of private prison company CoreCivic's political donations

A CoreCivic spokesperson has said that the company “supports candidates and elected officials who understand the limited but important solutions our company provides to assist government in meeting their mission-critical needs.”

In the now-settled lawsuit, CoreCivic detainees claimed that if they refused to work, they were given punishments ranging from solitary confinement, limiting their outside contact with loved ones, or restricting their access to basic necessities like food, soap, or toilet paper.

A company spokesperson has said that the allegations are “without merit” and that it settled the lawsuit to eliminate “the cost and distraction of litigation.”

CoreCivic contracts with the U.S. government, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the state of Arizona, to run private prisons and immigrant detention centers.

Arizona Republic reporters Ryan Randazzo and Ronald J. Hansen contributed to this report.

Laura Gersony is a national politics reporter for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @lauragersony.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kyrsten Sinema took donation from CoreCivic, accused of forced labor