DOJ says housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children sexually abuses and harasses – NBC4 Washington

Employees of the largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children in the United States have repeatedly sexually abused and molested children in their care over the past eight years, the Justice Department alleges.

Southwest Key employees, including supervisors, have raped, touched or solicited sexual and nude images from children since at least 2015, the Justice Department alleged in a lawsuit filed Wednesday. According to the lawsuit, at least two employees have been charged since 2020.

Austin-based Southwest Key is the largest provider of shelters for unaccompanied migrant children and is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The company has 29 shelters for migrant children – 17 in Texas, 10 in Arizona and two in California – with space for 6,350 children. The company’s largest shelter in Brownsville has a capacity of 1,200 people.

The Department of Health and Human Services reported 7,762 children in all of its contracted facilities as of May 31, according to the most recent data on its website. The numbers are not broken down by home or provider. The department would not say how many children are currently in Southwest Key’s care or whether the agency continues to transfer children into its care.

The complaint, which also details some of the alleged abuses, says authorities have received more than 100 reports of sexual abuse or harassment at the provider’s accommodations since 2015.

Among the allegations in the lawsuit: A staff member “repeatedly sexually abused” three girls, ages 5, 8 and 11, at the Casa Franklin home in El Paso, Texas. The 8-year-old told investigators the staff member “repeatedly came into their bedrooms in the middle of the night to touch their ‘private areas’ and threatened to kill their families if they disclosed the abuse.”

The lawsuit also alleges that an employee at the provider’s home in Tucson, Arizona, took an 11-year-old boy to a hotel in 2020 and paid him to perform sexual acts over several days.

The children were threatened with violence against themselves or their families if they reported the abuse, the lawsuit says. Additionally, testimony from victims revealed that in some cases, staff knew of the ongoing abuse and failed to report it or covered it up.

Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said Thursday the complaint raised “serious concerns about the pattern of conduct or practice” regarding Southwest Key. “The Department of Health has a zero-tolerance policy toward all forms of sexual abuse, sexual harassment, inappropriate sexual conduct and discrimination,” he said in a statement.

The lawsuit comes less than three weeks after a federal judge granted the Justice Department’s request to lift special oversight of the Department of Health and Human Services’ care of unaccompanied migrant children. President Joe Biden’s administration argued that new safeguards made special oversight unnecessary 27 years after it was put in place.

The Associated Press left a message with the company seeking comment Thursday.

The aim of the measure is to protect spouses of U.S. citizens without a residence permit from deportation.