Justice Department alleges sexual abuse of migrant children housed in nonprofit’s shelters
The allegations were made in a lawsuit, which Texas-based Southwest Key said “does not present the accurate picture of the care and commitment” it provides to migrant children.
July 19, 2024, 10:12 PM CDT
The U.S. government filed a lawsuit against its largest provider of temporary shelter for underage migrants, alleging widespread sexual abuse of vulnerable children it was entrusted to protect.
The civil rights suit, filed Wednesday in Austin, Texas, claims Austin-based Southwest Key Programs Inc. engaged in a pattern or practice of sexual abuse and harassment of unaccompanied children, which it said is a violation of the Fair Housing Act.
The lawsuit alleges that employees of the nonprofit subjected migrant children, sent to its facilities because they were unaccompanied by relatives or guardians at the southwest border, to “severe sexual abuse and rape.”
It also alleged employees engaged in solicitation of sex, requested nude photos, tried to start inappropriate relationships, made sexual comments and gestures, leered and touched children inappropriately.
The suit seeks undisclosed damages for victims of the alleged abuse and harassment as well as civil penalties and any other relief “the interests of justice may require,” it states.
The children, when encountered by U.S. Border Patrol or Customs and Border Protection agents, are transferred to the custody of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, which contracts with nonprofits like Southwest Key to provide housing and care until they can be given to a family member or guardian.
The government has paid Southwest Key more than $3 billion between 2015 and 2023 for the service, the lawsuit stated. The nonprofit is the government’s largest provider of housing and care for unaccompanied migrant children, the suit stated.
On Thursday, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a Justice Department statement on the lawsuit that HHS will “closely evaluate our assignment of children into care-giving programs to ensure the safety and well-being of every child in HHS custody.”
Southwest Key responded to the suit Thursday, stating its top priority is the safety, health and well-being of children it houses at 29 facilities in Texas, Arizona and California.
The nonprofit said it’s in constant communication with the Office of Refugee Resettlement “to ensure the children and youth entrusted to our care are safe.”
The lawsuit “does not present the accurate picture of the care and commitment our employees provide to the youth and children,” the statement said.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit lists multiple allegations of sexually abusive and harassing behavior and argues the nonprofit’s employees sometimes knew about ongoing violations in at least some of those cases but didn’t report their colleagues.
The suit states some of the allegations within it are from Southwest Key’s own documentation and video evidence — some sent to the refugee agency and some described in the suit as from internal investigations or reviews.
In 2019, a girl reported to her teacher that a Southwest Key youth care worker, described as a shift leader, repeatedly raped, abused and threatened her at a facility called Casa Montezuma in Channelview, Texas, the suit said, citing a Southwest Key report. She alleged the shift leader warned her not to report the alleged crime, and he changed shifts with colleagues so he could target her, according to the filing.
“The child reported the abuse by passing a note to her teacher on a day when she knew the Shift Leader was out of the country on vacation,” the suit said.
Another account of alleged abuse that was detailed in Southwest Key documents took place in 2019 and 2020 at its Casa Padre shelter for migrant children in Brownsville, Texas, where a youth care worker allegedly carried on a long-term relationship with a teenager that was known to co-workers but went unreported, the suit said.
Video showed the worker kissing the teenager, who ran away once the relationship came to light, the filing said. It also said the employee had allegedly helped other children run away from the facility.
In 2019, the number of migrant children held by the government or its contractors burgeoned to nearly 70,000, a figure bolstered by a policy of separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border in order to dissuade migrants from coming to the United States.
The situation was chaotic at times as children could not be held by the U.S. Border Patrol for more than 72 hours. There was a scramble to find beds for them, and detention camps composed of tents and temporary facilities were erected. Children were ultimately taken to the homelike facilities of Southwest Key and other nonprofit providers or placed with relatives.
Most at the time were from Central America. President Donald Trump approved nearly $3 billion that year to house and care for the children. Though some were taken from family at the border, all were considered technically unaccompanied.
Since that time, family separation ended, unaccompanied children still show up at the border alone, and spending on housing and care for unaccompanied migrant children more than doubled to $6.5 billion last year, according to government data.