According to DOJ, the ministry provides housing for migrant children who have been victims of sexual abuse

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Employees at the largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children in the U.S. repeatedly sexually abused and molested children in their care over a period of at least eight years, the Justice Department said Thursday, accusing the company of a shocking list of crimes that occurred while it amassed billions of dollars in government contracts.

Southwest Key Programs Inc. employees, including supervisors, raped, touched or solicited sex and nude photographs from children beginning in 2015 and possibly earlier, the Justice Department said in a lawsuit filed this week. At least two employees have been criminally charged since 2020 over the allegations.

It was unclear Thursday how many children are currently in Southwest Key’s vast network of homes in three states, which have space for more than 6,300 children. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to emailed questions about whether it had recommended that federal authorities remove children from the homes or terminate the government’s contracts with the nonprofit.

“In some cases, Southwest Key employees threatened the children to keep quiet,” the lawsuit states. “In harassing these children, Southwest Key employees took advantage of their vulnerability, language barriers, and distance from family and loved ones.”

Southwest Key said in a statement that it is investigating the complaint and disputes the portrayal of the children’s care.

The nonprofit is the largest provider of shelters for unaccompanied migrant children and is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It has 29 shelters for migrant children – 17 in Texas, 10 in Arizona and two in California. The company’s largest shelter in Brownsville, Texas, is located in a converted Walmart and can accommodate 1,200 people.

The provider was an important but rather inconspicuous player in the government’s response to the Arrival of hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children in recent years and during the Separation of thousands of families in 2017 and 2018 under the administration of President Donald Trump. The government awarded the provider contracts worth over $3 billion from 2015 to 2023.

The Border Patrol must transfer custody of unaccompanied children to the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours of apprehension, which releases most of these children to their parents or close relatives after a brief stay in Southwest Key or at shelters run by other contracted providers.

The Department of Health and Human Services reported 6,228 children in all of its facilities as of June 17, 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 admit children to its facilities.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Austin, where Southwest Key is based, contains extensive details, saying authorities have received more than 100 reports of sexual abuse or harassment at the provider’s shelters 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.

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.

Southwest spokeswoman Anais Biera Miracle said Thursday that the provider is still investigating the complaint, adding that she does not have an “accurate understanding of the level of care and commitment our employees show to the youth and children.”

Texas, like Florida, revoked the licenses of facilities housing migrant children in 2021 in response to the extraordinary influx of people from Mexico across the border. Critics call this a control gap.

The lawsuit comes less than three weeks after a federal judge granted the Justice Department’s request to lift special judicial oversight of HHS’s care of unaccompanied migrant children. President Joe Biden’s administration argued that new federal safeguards made special oversight unnecessary 27 years after they were enacted.

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Border Patrol, remains subject to special judicial oversight.

Leecia Welch, an attorney for unaccompanied children in the court-ordered supervision case, said the allegations against Southwest Key were “absolutely disgusting” and blamed Texas for “a powder keg that is about to explode” by revoking the licenses.

“While I welcome efforts to right the grave wrongs suffered by these children, I hope the federal government will also take responsibility for the role it played in this,” said Welch, deputy legal director for Children’s Rights.

Neha Desai, another lawyer involved in the court oversight, called the allegations “deeply disturbing and shocking.”

“I hope the administration will take the greatest possible measures to ensure that the children currently housed in the Southwest Key facilities are not in danger,” said Desai, senior director for immigration at the National Center for Youth Law.

The Associated Press left emails with the offices of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday. The attorneys general of Arizona and California declined to comment on the litigation.

Southwest grew when large numbers of unaccompanied children crossed the border in 2014, overwhelming U.S. authorities.

The company is embroiled in an immigration debate and insists that its mission is to provide quality care for children, calling its facilities “casas,” Spanish for home.

“A typical day for children at a Southwest Key Casa includes breakfast, school, lunch, dinner, homework, snacks and bedtime,” the Justice Department complaint said.

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This story has been edited to correct that the HHS numbers refer to all children in migrant shelters, not specifically Southwest Key.

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Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas. Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.