Employees of a Texas-based nonprofit that provides housing to unaccompanied migrant children have repeatedly subjected minors in their care to sexual abuse and harassment, the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged in a new process.
From 2015 until at least the end of 2023, multiple employees at Southwest Key Programs, the nation’s largest private provider of housing for unaccompanied children, subjected unaccompanied children in their care to “repeated and unwelcome sexual abuse, harassment and misconduct,” it says the process. he said.
Minors housed in its shelters were subjected to severe sexual abuse and rape, requests for sexual acts, requests for nude photos and calls for sexually inappropriate relationships, among other acts, according to the lawsuit.
The children range in age from five years old and teenagers are just under eighteen years old and come mainly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Southwest Key employees allegedly discouraged children from reporting abuse, in some cases threatening them and their families, according to the lawsuit.
The staff “exploited the children’s vulnerabilities, language barriers and distance from family and loved ones,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Texas federal court on Wednesday.
Despite being aware of the “severe and widespread harm,” Southwest Key failed to take adequate steps to protect the children in its care, the DOJ said.
“In pursuit of the American dream, children often face perilous journeys as they migrate from the northern to the southern border,” said Alamdar Hamdani, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, in a statement. “The sexual harassment alleged in the complaint would destroy any child’s sense of safety, turning what was an American dream into a nightmare.”
In a statement, a Southwest Key spokeswoman said the complaint “does not present an accurate picture of the care and commitment our employees provide to youth and children.”
“We are in constant communication and continue to partner closely with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), as we have done for the past two decades to ensure that the children and youth entrusted to our care are safe with us during their short stay with Southwest Key,” said Anais Biera Miracle in an emailed statement.
Southwest Key is the largest private provider of care for unaccompanied children in the United States and currently operates at least 29 shelters in Texas, Arizona and California that house a total of 6,350 unaccompanied children.
Children arriving at the southern border with Mexico unaccompanied by a parent or legal guardian are the responsibility of the federal government.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is responsible for housing unaccompanied migrant children and contracts with facilities like Southwest Key to provide the shelter.
It’s a profitable industry. Between fiscal years 2015 and 2023, Southwest Key received more than $3 billion in funding from HHS, according to the DOJ.
During that period, Southwest Key received more than 100 reports of sexual harassment or abuse of children in its care, the DOJ alleged, but the company took no action.
“On numerous occasions, Southwest Key employees failed to report knowledge or suspicion of child sexual abuse or harassment, including when the abuse was observed by others or was ongoing,” the lawsuit stated.
A report describes a Southwest Key juvenile caregiver who repeatedly sexually abused a five-year-old girl, an eight-year-old girl, and an eleven-year-old girl at a facility in El Paso, Texas, in 2022. He entered their rooms in the middle of the night. night to play in his “private area” and threatened to kill his family if they revealed the abuse, according to the lawsuit.
In another case documented by Southwest Key, a Texas shelter supervisor in 2019 regularly switched duties with other employees so he could be alone with a teenage girl, who he repeatedly raped, abused and threatened.
She reported the abuse by passing a note to the teacher when the supervisor was on vacation, according to the lawsuit. After her report, the child was transferred to another shelter.
The suit cited a 2019 report of a doctor who asked inappropriate questions about a girl’s sexual experiences, asked if she wanted a hug and “examined her body.”
In another, documents detailed an employee who sexually touched young boys during transportation in May 2022.
In a 2020 incident detailed in “numerous” reports, according to the lawsuit, a Southwest Key worker fled with a fifteen-year-old boy from an Arizona shelter. The worker took the boy to a hotel room for several days, where he paid him for sexual acts. The worker was later indicted and pleaded guilty in March 2022 to the crime of attempted sexual conduct with a minor.
The DOJ alleged that Southwest Key employees also threatened children into silence.
A Southwest Key employee at a Brownsville, Texas, shelter discouraged a child from filing a harassment report, saying it would delay her reunification with her family or negatively affect her placement with a sponsor, according to the lawsuit.
In another case described in the lawsuit, a child with visible physical marks similar to hickeys on her body and breasts reported a sexual assault to a Southwest Key employee, who instructed her to “cover up” the marks. The child reported to another trusted Southwest Key employee, who notified a supervisor about the incident. The supervisor told the employee not to write an official report.
Southwest Key shelters experienced an influx when children were separated from their families at the border under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy in 2017 and 2018. This resulted in more than 5,000 children being placed into federal custody after being removed from their parents or guardians. on the southern border.
The company has been scrutinized before.
Videos from Arizona Southwest Key shelters in 2018 showed staff physically abusing children. Two facilities lost their licenses. Around the same time, the state Department of Health Services moved to revoke the licenses of all of Arizona’s Southwest Key shelters, citing a failure to provide evidence that their workers had received required background checks.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
