A Border Patrol agent processes a group of unaccompanied Central American minors who crossed the Rio Grande River. Employees at the largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children sexually abused and harassed minors in its care over the course of years, the U.S. Justice Department alleges in a lawsuit filed this week .
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Austin, maintains that federal authorities uncovered a pattern of "severe" and "pervasive" harassment extending back to at least 2015 in shelters operated by Southwest Key Programs Inc. At least two of the Austin-based nonprofit's employees have been criminally charged since 2020, according to the government's petition.
“Sexual harassment of children in residential shelters, where a child should be safe and secure, is abusive, dehumanizing and unlawful,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “Sexual abuse of children is a crisis that we can’t ignore or turn a blind eye to. This lawsuit seeks relief for children who have been abused and harmed, and meaningful reforms to ensure no child in these shelters is ever subjected to sexual abuse again.”
Southwest Key operates 29 shelters under federal contracts to care for migrant youths who arrive in the U.S. without their parents or guardians. Seventeen of those facilities are in Texas.
In a statement released to the Associated Press , Southwest Key disputed the government's allegations but added that officials are reviewing the suit's claims.
The Justice Department's suit alleges that some Southwest Key staff knew about the abuse and either covered it up or failed to report it. Victims also were threatened with violence if they reported their mistreatment, the government also maintains.
The suit includes specific allegations of abuse, including the claim that a Southwest Key employee at an El Paso shelter “repeatedly sexually abused” three girls who were 5, 8 and 11 at the time. What's more, a staffer at a Tucson, Arizona, facility took an 11-year-old boy to a hotel for several days and paid him to perform sexual acts, according to the claims in the petition.
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