The Trump administration eliminates migrant children at Key Southwest shelters

The federal government has ceased to place migrant children in shelters operated by Southwest Key, who are facing a civil trial of the Department of Justice, accusing more employees of the non -profit organization of sexual abuse of children at several facilities, including some in Arizona.

The Department of Justice rejected the trial after the Department for Health and Human Services decided to cease to cry migrant children operated by Southwest Key, who is based in Austin, Texas.

“Ensuring our border and protecting children against abuses are among the most critical missions of the Department of Justice and the Trump Administration,” said US Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “In accordance with the previous administration border policies, the bad actors were encouraged to exploit the children and violate our laws: this is over now.”

The Federal Health Department said that all the children who were housed in the Key Southwest shelters, while in the custody of the refugee relocation department were moved to other shelters.

“This administration works without fear to put an end to the tragedy of human trafficking and other abuses of unaccompanied aliens entering the country,” said the secretary for human health and services, Robert F. Kennedy, in a written statement. “For too long, the dangerous actors have exploited such children both before and after entering the United States. Today’s action is a significant step toward the conclusion of this terribly innocent abuse.”

A legal lawyer of young people praised the decision to stop placing unaccompanied migrant children at Key Southwest shelters, but threw the justice department because he gave up the trial.

“They do not give any reason for this. They do not suggest that none of the statements (of sexual abuse) had a merit or they were wrong … Only that they were rejected and left only all these children in the cold without the justice being served and with the southwest they were not responsible for any of the actions of his employees,” David Hinojosa told the national group advocacy.

In rejecting the trial, the Department of Justice seemed to accept a request for a lawyer for the Southwest key that the complaint undermined the repression of the Trump administration, Hinojosa said.

The South -West Key Lawyer “sent them an Email urging them to reject the case and saying that this case conflicts with the immigration priorities (Trump administration) … and that, in a way, if this case is not rejected, it will open the doors of other processes and will stimulate other children to meet the border, as it would be raped in a shelter Hinojosa. “Many can run away from the treatment of their origin countries, but they run out of it, they will not go to him.

Unaccompanied minors are children under the age of 18, without legal status to be in the US, who usually crossed the border without a parent or legal guardian. After they have been placed in the custody of the refugee relocation office, they are housed in shelters until they can be released to a relative or sponsor while following their immigration cases.

Some of the unaccompanied children come to meet their parents already in the US or work, Hinojosa said. Others run away from violence and seek asylum in the US, Hinojosa said.

The statements against the South -West key in the process were “quite shocking,” Hinojosa said.

According to the trial, filed by the Department of Justice in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas in Austin, several key employees in the south -the west have subjected unaccompanied children to “repeated and unwanted sexual abuse, harassment and incorrect conduct and a robed environment, including sexual sexual abuses, sexual sexual abuses, Nude photographs, intended for sexual sexual sexual intercourse, sexual intercourse and nude photographs, sexual intercourse intention, sexual intercourse, sexual comments and nude photographs, sexual sexual, sexual, sexual, sexual, sexual improper touch. “

The process claimed that children who have been sexually abused in shelters have ranged from “five -year -olds to adolescents only eighteen years.”

The trial claimed Southwest Key was employed in a “model and practical” of severe or ubiquitous sexual harassment in his care. The trial claimed that the abuses took place from at least 2015 to at least 2023. The trial detailed detailed accusations about the abuses that took place in several shelters, including the Kokoplli House and Las Palmas, both in Mesa and Casa Estrella in Tucson.

Hinojosa said that the National Center for Youth Law has sent a letter asking the district judge Alan D. Albright to intervene to keep the case alive. Albright agreed on March 12 to reject the case at the common request of the Department of Justice and the South -West key, the judicial documents show.

Southwest Key spokesman Anais Miracle, launched a written statement that refused the accusations of sexual abuse contained in the trial of the justice department, filed in July 2024, under the Biden Administration.

“South -West key programs are satisfied with the fact that the United States Department of Justice has given up on its entire case against our organization,” said Miracle Bira. “Southwest Key has strongly denied requests for sexual abuse of children in our shelters and no settlement or payment is required. We are glad that this problem is now closed.”

The Miracle Biera thanked the Department of Justice for the permanent closure of the case.

“I have always believed that the facts would prove the statements of being without merit,” said Miracle Bira.

Southwest Key has been unleashed by about 5,000 employees after the federal government has frozen the financing and put an order to place the stop of the organization, said Miracle Bira.

Southwest Key received more than $ 3 billion in financing from the Human Health and Services Department.

Southwest Key is the largest supplier of migrant shelters in the US, the organization operates 29 shelters, including 17 in Texas, 10 in Arizona and two in California, the trial said. The shelters can accommodate a total of 6,350 children.