More than 2,000 migrant kids have been separated from their parents at the U.S/Mexico border since Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III announced the administration’s brutal “zero tolerance” policy earlier this year, and a disturbing report from Reveal and The Texas Tribune finds that some have been sent to facilities, operated by private companies through contracts from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), that have been “accused of serious lapses in care, including neglect and sexual and physical abuse”:
In Texas, where the resettlement agency awarded the majority of the grants, state inspectors have cited homes with more than 400 deficiencies, about one-third of them serious.
That includes “staff members’ failure to seek medical attention for children,” including kids who have suffered burns, broken wrists, even a sexually transmitted infection. Another facility, run by Southwest Key, was cited after an employee drove to work drunk. “A drug test later found he was over the legal alcohol limit to drive. That was among the 246 violations state inspectors found at Southwest Key’s facilities, including rotten bananas and shampoo dispensers filled with hand sanitizer.”
Southwest Key’s contract should have been canceled immediately. This is child abuse. Instead, one of its largest facilities, a former Walmart in Brownsville, has increased its capacity from 1,200 to 1,500 in order to cope with the administration’s surge in arrests.
Another facility in Florida, which briefly shut down after an employee “was sentenced to 10 years in prison in November for engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior with minors,” reopened earlier this year after a $20 million contract from ORR. Taxpayers have paid these companies “more than $1.5 billion in the past four years,” and legislators who have visited facilities say staffers who actually are dedicated to protecting children under their care have not been given any assurances they’ll get resources they need.
“That was a question that we hammered everyone with, to find out whether or not they have enough trained staff to be able to detect the mental trauma these kids are going through,” said New York Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, who recently visited a Southwest Key facility in El Cajon, California, with a delegation of House Democrats. “I am concerned, because they’re saying there is a surge and more and more kids are coming in, and they don’t have the resources to hire more staff and to train staff to be able to deal with this”:
Records reviewed indicate only two cases in which the agency terminated an agreement with one of the 13 shelter providers. One occurred after state regulators cited a Texas company, International Educational Services, with more than 100 deficiencies at its nine operations, including inappropriate sexual contact between staff and children, harsh punishment and lapses in medical care.
The $1.5 billion should have provided plenty of assurances. Instead, the facilities continue flowing in cash as they take kids who never should have been torn from their parents in the first place. “Representatives for Southwest Key Programs,” the Tribune reported, “did not return phone calls and an email seeking comment.”