Hacienda del Sol, a migrant children’s detention facility in Arizona, transferred kids under its custody to other facilities and abruptly shut down last Friday without any explanation. The following Tuesday, officials finally revealed why: a number of facility staffers have been fired for physically abusing three migrant children, the New York Times reports, following an incident on Sept. 18 that led to the transfers and closure.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which contracts with Hacienda del Sol’s owner, Southwest Key, “did not release additional details about the incident or how many staff members were involved,” or if any will be charged. But apparently it was horrific enough to merit drastic action, and it’s just the latest incident of abuse committed by employees of Southwest Key, a “non-profit” that will make nearly $500 million this year through a contract with the Trump administration.
In August, a Southwest Key employee at Casa Campbell, also in Arizona, was arrested and charged with molesting a 14-year-old detained girl. That same month, another Southwest Key employee at Casa Kokopelli, again in Arizona, was charged with 11 offenses after molesting at least eight unaccompanied migrant boys over a one-year period.
That particular facility had already been cited in 2017 for failing to complete background checks, a problem that apparently continued, because Hacienda del Sol’s sudden closure came “after Arizona officials moved to revoke the licenses for Southwest Key after it missed a deadline to show that all employees passed background checks,” the New York Times continued.
Back in June, at the height of media attention on the family separation crisis, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon tried to visit a Southwest Key facility in Brownsville, Texas, only to have staffers call the cops on him instead. “American citizens are funding this operation,” Merkley said, even as Texas’ U.S. senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, said nothing, “so every American citizen has a stake in how these children are being treated and how this policy is being enacted.”
12 News reports that Southwest Key is working on retraining the facility’s remaining staff, but this goes beyond one facility. This taxpayer-funded cruelty comes as the administration has a record number of migrant kids in custody. The act of detaining a child is in it itself harmful enough, but now officials are intentionally keeping thousands of kids in facilities where they could be subject to even more unspeakable abuse. Enough. Children do not belong in detention.
