(NewsInsights.org) – The Department of Justice (DoJ) is suing a Texas-based nonprofit responsible for housing unaccompanied minors who enter the US at border crossings. Southwest Key Programs Inc., which operates 29 shelters in across three states, has received millions of dollars in government funding since its inception. The lawsuit alleges that the company failed to address and prevent systematic abuse of children under its care.
According to court documents, Southwest Key actively turned a blind eye toward pervasive and ongoing sexual abuse committed by staffers between 2015 and 2023. Employees stand accused of engaging in a broad range of sexual offenses against migrant children in care, including solicitation of sexual acts and nude photos, inappropriate relationships, sexual harassment, unwanted touching, and outright sexual assault.
Shelter staff also reportedly threatened victims and intentionally exploited vulnerabilities, such as language barriers and distance from family, in a bid to conceal their misconduct after the fact. The DoJ argues that both these initial abuses, as well as the subsequent attempts to silence victims, violate the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and the civil rights of kids in care.
This isn’t the first time for allegations of abuse within Southwest Key’s shelters to surface. A US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) audit in 2020 highlighted not only a troubling amount of incident reports but also serious problems in how the non-profit and the government handled them.
HHS investigators uncovered over 750 incidents involving sexual misconduct across multiple Southwest Key shelters within a six-month period. Some of these reports led to criminal convictions. At least one staffer was charged with sexually abusing seven migrant children, while another was convicted of coercing a minor into illicit sexual activity.
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) demand to force the HHS to release records on the abuse of migrant kids in government care in 2021. Within the 41 pages it obtained was a spreadsheet that contained over 30 reports about sexual abuse of children, all of which occurred within the one-month period between January and February 2021.
Southwest Key continues to receive grant money from the Biden administration despite this clear and demonstrable pattern of concerning reports. Government grant records show that the company received $3 billion between 2015 and 2023, of which approximately $962.9 million was awarded in 2024 alone.
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