Migrant children were placed in abusive shelters for years, the lawsuit says. Critics blame lack of oversight

MCALLEN, Texas – As allegations of sexual abuse piled up at the largest provider of housing for unaccompanied migrant children in the U.S., authorities continued to place children in their care in a system that lacks adequate oversight, advocates say.

A lawsuit archived wednesday by the Department of Justice alleges that employees of Southwest Key Programs Inc. sexually abused and harassed children in their care for at least eight years. During that time, the nonprofit accumulated billions of dollars in government contracts and continued to shelter thousands of unaccompanied migrant children entering the US.

It was still unclear Friday how many children are currently in Southwest Key shelters, and federal officials did not respond to questions about whether any action would be taken in response to the lawsuit. Critics say this reflects a system that has lacked accountability for years.

“The point of this complaint is that this pattern and practice exists,” said Leecia Welch, deputy legal director for Children’s Rights. “If they are coming forward with this complaint that they saw a pattern and practice of sexual harassment and rape of these children while still placing children on Southwest Key during the same time period, that is why I am so disconnected.”

Southwest Key, which operates with grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the Office of Refugee Resettlement, has 29 shelters for migrant children — 17 in Texas, 10 in Arizona and two in California — with space for more than 6,300 children .

The department did not respond to emailed requests for comment asking whether children would continue to be placed there. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment beyond Thursday’s announcement of the lawsuit. Southwest Key did not respond to an additional emailed request for comment Friday.

“ORR continued to contract with Southwest Key despite knowing about some of these issues, so at this time there is no other place to place all of these children,” said Diane de Gramont, an attorney with the National Juvenile Law Center. “And we would be extremely concerned if children ended up in Border Patrol facilities for long periods of time because ORR did not have enough beds for them.”

The Border Patrol must transfer custody of unaccompanied children within 72 hours of arrest to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which releases most to parents or close relatives after short stays on Southwest Key or in shelters operated by other contracted suppliers.

The Youth Center for the Rights of Immigrant Children, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrant children, called for children in custody to be immediately reunited with family members and given access to lawyers, as well as “independent courts that will hear their damage claims.”

Previous abuses at some Southwest Key shelters have led to their closure, including two large facilities in Arizona in 2018. The state revoked their licenses for failing to adequately perform background checks on their employees, and further investigation revealed several cases of physical and sexual abuse, including accusations from the government of El Salvador.

The abuse reflects the important role of state oversight, something now lacking in states like Texas and Florida, where Republican governors have revoked state licensing of facilities that house migrant children.

Critics say there is no equivalent system for reporting and investigating child abuse and neglect through the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the housing of migrant children.

“If there is an incident of abuse, when the state is present, there is a clear hotline for anyone to call,” de Gramont said. “There is a mandatory investigation…there is a strict series of events that are supposed to happen there.”

Some experts also wondered why the complaint was filed as a civil action, where no one would be held criminally responsible.

Daniel Hatoum, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project whose experience includes defending children subject to the labor of immigration contractors, said criminal prosecution could come later.

“Corporate liability can be much more difficult for the Department of Justice than civil liability and especially individual criminal liability,” he said. The civil lawsuit seeks a jury trial and seeks monetary damages from victims of the alleged abuse.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit comes less than three weeks later a federal judge granted his request to suspend special judicial oversight of the Department of Health and Human Services’ care for unaccompanied migrant children, known as the Flores settlement. This gave lawyers representing migrant children broad authority to visit custody facilities and conduct interviews with staff and other migrants, as well as file complaints in court.

President Joe Biden’s administration argued that new federal safeguards made special oversight unnecessary 27 years after it began. In a court filing, Department of Health and Human Services official Toby Biswas painted a rosy picture of the new regulations’ numerous protections for unaccompanied children, as well as independent accountability for their custodial conditions.

Advocates instead saw a gap in oversight.

Carrie Van der Hoek, deputy director of the child advocacy program at the Young Center in Texas, said in a statement opposing the termination of Flores’ agreement that her staff reported approximately 10 cases of alleged abuse and neglect to the Department of Family and Services of State Protection. since Texas revoked its licensing in 2021.

“When we made these reports, in some cases, DFPS officials told us they would not investigate the complaint because DFPS did not have jurisdiction over ORR facilities,” Van der Hoek said. “In other cases, we received no response and were not aware of any actions taken by DFPS or any other state agency to investigate the report.”

Van der Hoek also said that if a child called pre-programmed phones at the Office of Refugee Resettlement, facilities that allow them to contact the state’s child abuse and neglect hotline, they would get the same response.

Biswas said he began conducting “in-depth reviews” of allegations of abuse at Texas facilities starting in March 2022 and will begin his own investigations of alleged child abuse and neglect in Texas “or any other state if he fails to conduct such investigations.” from July this year.

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Associated Press journalist Elliot Spagat contributed to this report.

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A previous version of this story incorrectly reported that the Justice Department filed the lawsuit on Thursday.