U.S. Sues Nonprofit it Has Paid Billions to House Migrant Youths for Sexually Abusing Them for Years

The U.S. government’s largest housing provider for illegal immigrant minors, which has received billions of dollars from American taxpayers since Barack Obama was president, is now being sued by the Biden administration for raping, sexually abusing and harassing the children Uncle Sam pays it to shelter. The Texas-based nonprofit that has raked in enormous amounts of public funds is called Southwest Key and it operates 29 shelters that provide temporary housing for the hundreds of thousands of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), migrants under the age of 18, welcomed into the country in the last few years. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which operates under Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is responsible for caring for UAC and in fiscal year 2021 provided shelter for an unprecedented 122,731 young migrants and 118,938 in fiscal year 2023, according to government figures. The overwhelming majority (76%) of UAC are over 14 years of age and 61% are boys, the stats show. They come from Guatemala (42%), Honduras (28%), El Salvador (9%), Mexico (8%) and “other” (13%).

Allegations of sexual and physical abuse at UAC shelters have circulated for years and back in 2021 Judicial Watch obtained records from HHS documenting 33 incidents of physical and sexual abuse during a one-month period at shelters where the government houses UAC until they are relocated with a sponsor. Months earlier, the agency got slammed in a federal audit for failing to protect UAC from sexual misconduct at the facilities. During a six-month period alone, investigators from the HHS Inspector General’s office uncovered more than 750 incidents involving sexual misconduct at dozens of shelters housing minor detainees. The investigation was launched because ORR-funded facilities for years reported allegations of sexual and physical abuse of minors in their care, some resulting in criminal convictions. For example, in one case a facility employee was convicted of sexually abusing seven UAC and in another an employee was convicted of attempting to coerce a minor to engage in illicit sexual activity and exchanging explicit videos and images with others.

Now, after all these years, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is finally taking legal action after unknown numbers of migrant kids were victimized by the same provider for around a decade. In its complaint the DOJ writes that from at least 2015 through at least 2023, multiple Southwest Key employees have subjected UAC in their care to repeated and unwelcome sexual abuse, harassment, and misconduct and a hostile housing environment, including severe sexual abuse and rape, solicitation of sex acts, solicitation of nude photos, entreaties for sexually inappropriate relationships, sexual comments and gestures, leering, and inappropriate touching. In some cases, the feds say, Southwest Key employees charged with caring for the migrants threatened them to maintain their silence. “In harassing these children, these Southwest Key employees exploited the children’s vulnerabilities, language barriers, and distance from family and loved ones,” the lawsuit, filed in an Austin, Texas federal court states.

Laughably, though the crimes have persisted consistently over many years, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, a former California Attorney General and longtime congressman in the Golden State, said this in a statement: “HHS has a zero-tolerance policy for all forms of sexual abuse, sexual harassment, inappropriate sexual behavior, and discrimination.” Bidens Health Secretary added that the DOJ’s lawsuit against Southwest Key “raises a serious pattern or practice concern” and assured that his agency will collaborate with federal prosecutors and oversight agencies to hold its care-giving programs like Southwest Key accountable. “And we will continue to closely evaluate our assignment of children into care-giving programs to ensure the safety and well-being of every child in HHS custody,” Becerra proclaimed.

The heinous allegations and years-long evidence of wrongdoing against this nonprofit have not stopped the government cash from flowing, however. In the last few years alone, HHS has given Southwest Key over $13 million, according to recent government grant records. The money is listed as going to health care and social assistance, community food and housing, emergency, and other relief services. The contracts continued even though the DOJ reveals in its lawsuit that even after ORR issued multiple corrective actions Southwest Key failed to consistently follow federal requirements for preventing, detecting and reporting abuse including sexual harassment, failed to take appropriate or sufficient action to protect the children in its care and discouraged children from disclosing sexual harassment in violation of federal requirements.