Staff of a Texas-based nonprofit that gives housing to unaccompanied migrant youngsters repeatedly subjected minors in its care to sexual abuse and harassment, the Division of Justice (DOJ) alleged in a brand new lawsuit.
From 2015 via no less than the tip of 2023, a number of workers at Southwest Key Packages, the nation’s largest personal supplier of housing for unaccompanied youngsters, subjected unaccompanied youngsters of their care to “repeated and unwelcome sexual abuse, harassment, and misconduct,” the lawsuit mentioned.
Minors housed in its shelters had been subjected to extreme sexual abuse and rape, solicitation of intercourse acts, solicitation of nude pictures and entreaties for sexually inappropriate relationships, amongst different acts, in accordance with the lawsuit.
The youngsters vary in age from as younger as 5 years outdated to youngsters simply shy of eighteen years outdated, and primarily come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Southwest Key workers allegedly discouraged youngsters from reporting abuse, in some instances threatening them and their households, in accordance with the lawsuit.
Staff “exploited the kids’s vulnerabilities, language limitations, and distance from household and family members,” in accordance with the lawsuit, which was filed in federal courtroom in Texas on Wednesday.
Regardless of being conscious of the “extreme and pervasive harms,” Southwest Key did not take acceptable motion to guard the kids in its care, the DOJ mentioned.
“In quest of the American Dream, youngsters typically endure perilous journeys on their migration north to the southern border,” Alamdar Hamdani, U.S. Legal professional for the Southern District of Texas, mentioned in a press release. “The sexual harassment alleged within the criticism would destroy any baby’s sense of security, turning what was an American Dream right into a nightmare.”
In a press release, a Southwest Key spokeswoman mentioned the criticism “doesn’t current the correct image of the care and dedication our workers present to the youth and kids.”
“We’re in fixed communication and proceed to intently accomplice with the Workplace of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), as we’ve carried out so for the previous 20 years to make sure the kids and youth entrusted to our care are secure with us throughout their brief stick with Southwest Key,” Anais Biera Miracle mentioned in an emailed assertion.
Southwest Secret is the most important personal care supplier for unaccompanied youngsters in the US and presently operates no less than 29 shelters in Texas, Arizona and California that maintain a complete of 6,350 unaccompanied youngsters.
Youngsters who arrive on the southern border with Mexico unaccompanied by dad and mom or authorized guardians are the accountability of the federal authorities.
The Division of Well being and Human Service’s Workplace of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is accountable for sheltering unaccompanied migrant youngsters, and contracts with services like Southwest Key to supply the shelter.
It’s a profitable business. Between fiscal years 2015 and 2023, Southwest Key obtained over $3 billion in funding from HHS, in accordance with the DOJ.
Throughout that interval, Southwest Key obtained over 100 experiences of sexual harassment or abuse of the kids below its care, the DOJ alleged, however the firm took no motion.
“On quite a few events Southwest Key workers did not report information or suspicion of sexual abuse or harassment of youngsters, together with when the abuse was noticed by others or was ongoing,” the lawsuit said.
One report describes a Southwest Key Youth Care Employee who repeatedly sexually abused a five-year-old woman, an eight-year-old woman and an eleven-year-old woman at a facility in El Paso, Texas, in 2022. He entered their bedrooms in the midst of the night time to the touch their “personal space,” and threatened to kill their households in the event that they disclosed the abuse, in accordance with the lawsuit.
In one other occasion Southwest Key documented, a supervisor at a Texas shelter in 2019 would usually swap assignments with different workers in order that he might be alone with a teenage woman, who he repeatedly raped, abused and threatened.
She reported the abuse by passing a word to her instructor when the supervisor was on trip, in accordance with the lawsuit. Following her report, the kid was transferred to a unique shelter.
The lawsuit cited a 2019 report of a clinician who requested inappropriate questions on a woman’s sexual experiences, requested if she wished a hug and “appeared over her physique.”
In one other, paperwork detailed an worker sexually touching boys throughout transport in Could 2022.
In a 2020 incident detailed in “quite a few” experiences, per the lawsuit, a Southwest Key employee ran off with a fifteen-year-old boy from an Arizona shelter. The employee took the boy to a lodge room for a number of days the place he paid the boy for intercourse acts. The employee was later indicted and pleaded responsible in March 2022 to felony tried sexual conduct with a minor.
The DOJ alleged Southwest Key workers additionally threatened youngsters into silence.
A Southwest Key worker at a Brownsville, Texas, shelter discouraged a baby from pursuing a report of harassment by saying it will delay her reunification along with her household or adversely have an effect on her placement with a sponsor, in accordance with the lawsuit.
In one other case described within the lawsuit, a baby with seen bodily marks resembling hickeys on her physique and breasts reported a sexual assault to a Southwest Key worker who instructed her to “cowl up” the marks. The kid reported to a different, trusted Southwest Key worker, who notified a supervisor of the incident. The supervisor advised the worker to not write an official report.
Southwest Key shelters skilled an inflow as youngsters had been separated from their households on the border below the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance coverage in 2017 and 2018. It resulted in additional than 5,000 youngsters being put into federal custody after they had been faraway from their dad and mom or guardians on the southern border.
The corporate has come below scrutiny earlier than.
Movies from Arizona Southwest Key shelters in 2018 confirmed staffers bodily abusing youngsters. Two services misplaced their licenses. Across the similar time, the state Division of Well being Providers moved to revoke the licenses of all Southwest Key’s Arizona shelters, citing a failure to supply proof that its employees had obtained required background checks.
