The US government has filed a lawsuit against its largest provider of temporary shelters for underage migrants, alleging widespread sexual abuse of vulnerable children it was tasked with protecting.
The civil rights lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Austin, Texas, alleges that Austin-based Southwest Key Programs Inc. has engaged in a pattern or practice of sexual abuse and harassment of unaccompanied children, which it considers to be a violation of the Fair Housing Act.
The lawsuit alleges that the nonprofit’s employees subjected migrant children, sent to its facilities because they were not accompanied by family or guardians at the southwest border, to “severe sexual abuse and rape.”
It also alleged that employees engaged in solicitation for sex, requested nude photographs, attempted to initiate inappropriate relationships, made sexual comments and gestures, leered at, and inappropriately touched children.
The lawsuit seeks undisclosed damages for victims of the alleged abuse and harassment, as well as civil penalties and any other relief “that the interests of justice may require,” it states.
Children, when encountered by U.S. Border Patrol or Customs and Border Protection agents, are transferred to the custody of U.S. Homeland Security’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, which contracts with nonprofit organizations like Southwest Key to provide housing and care until they can be handed over to a family member or guardian.
The government paid Southwest Key more than $3 billion between 2015 and 2023 for the service, the lawsuit states. The nonprofit is the largest government provider of housing and care for unaccompanied migrant children, the lawsuit states.
On Thursday, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a Justice Department statement about the lawsuit that HHS will “closely evaluate our assignment of children to care programs to ensure safety and the well-being of all children at HHS.” custody.”
Southwest Key responded to the lawsuit Thursday, saying its top priority is the safety, health and well-being of the children it houses at 29 facilities in Texas, Arizona and California.
The nonprofit said it is in constant communication with the Office of Refugee Resettlement “to ensure the children and youth entrusted to our care are safe.”
The action “does not present an accurate picture of the care and commitment our employees provide to youth and children,” the statement said.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit lists multiple allegations of sexually abusive and harassing behavior and argues that the nonprofit’s employees sometimes knew of ongoing violations in at least some of those cases but failed to report it to their colleagues.
The lawsuit claims that some of the allegations contained in it come from Southwest Key’s own documentation and video evidence — some sent to the refugee agency and others described in the lawsuit as coming from internal investigations or reviews.
In 2019, a girl reported to her teacher that a Southwest Key juvenile caregiver, described as a shift leader, repeatedly raped, abused and threatened her at a facility called Casa Montezuma in Channelview, Texas, the lawsuit said, citing a Southwest employee Key. report. She alleged that her shift leader warned her not to report the alleged crime, and he switched shifts with his colleagues so he could attack her, according to the lawsuit.
“The child reported the abuse by passing a note to the teacher on a day when she knew the Shift Leader was out of the country on vacation,” the lawsuit said.
Another report of alleged abuse detailed in Southwest Key documents occurred in 2019 and 2020 at the Casa Padre shelter for migrant children in Brownsville, Texas, where a youth caregiver allegedly had a long-term relationship with a teenager known to co-workers. but it was not reported, the suit said.
The video showed the worker kissing the teenager, who fled as soon as the relationship came to light, according to the lawsuit. He also said the employee allegedly helped other children escape the facility.
In 2019, the number of migrant children detained by the government or its contractors grew to almost 70,000a number reinforced by a policy of separating families at the US-Mexico border in order to dissuade migrants from coming to the United States.
The situation was sometimes chaotic as children could not be detained by the US Border Patrol for more than 72 hours. There was a struggle to find beds for them and detention camps made up of tents and temporary facilities were erected. The children were eventually taken to home-like facilities run by Southwest Key and other nonprofits or placed with family members.
Most at the time were from Central America. President Donald Trump approved almost $3 billion that year to house and care for children. Although some were taken from family members at the border, all were considered technically unaccompanied.
Since then, family separation has ended, unaccompanied children still show up alone at the border, and spending on housing and care for unaccompanied migrant children has more than doubled to $6.5 billion last year. according to government data.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
