Shutterstock / Vic Hinterlang
A Border Patrol agent processes a bunch of unaccompanied Central American minors who crossed the Rio Grande River.
Workers on the largest housing supplier for unaccompanied migrant youngsters sexually abused and harassed minors in its care over the course of years, the U.S. Justice Division alleges in a lawsuit filed this week.
The go well with, filed in U.S. District Courtroom in Austin, maintains that federal authorities uncovered a sample of “extreme” and “pervasive” harassment extending again to at the very least 2015 in shelters operated by Southwest Key Packages Inc. At the very least two of the Austin-based nonprofit’s workers have been criminally charged since 2020, in keeping with the federal government’s petition.
“Sexual harassment of kids in residential shelters, the place a baby ought to be protected and safe, is abusive, dehumanizing and illegal,” Assistant Lawyer Basic Kristen Clarke of the Justice Division’s Civil Rights Division stated in an announcement. “Sexual abuse of kids is a disaster that we will’t ignore or flip a blind eye to. This lawsuit seeks aid for kids who’ve been abused and harmed, and significant reforms to make sure no little one in these shelters is ever subjected to sexual abuse once more.”
Southwest Key operates 29 shelters underneath federal contracts to look after migrant youths who arrive within the U.S. with out their dad and mom or guardians. Seventeen of these services are in Texas.
In an announcement launched to the Related Press, Southwest Key disputed the federal government’s allegations however added that officers are reviewing the go well with’s claims.
The Justice Division’s go well with alleges that some Southwest Key employees knew in regards to the abuse and both coated it up or didn’t report it. Victims additionally have been threatened with violence in the event that they reported their mistreatment, the federal government additionally maintains.
The go well with consists of particular allegations of abuse, together with the declare {that a} Southwest Key worker at an El Paso shelter “repeatedly sexually abused” three ladies who have been 5, 8 and 11 on the time. What’s extra, a staffer at a Tucson, Arizona, facility took an 11-year-old boy to a resort for a number of days and paid him to carry out sexual acts, in keeping with the claims within the petition.
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