The largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children has engaged in the “severe, pervasive, and unwelcome” sexual abuse and harassment of children in its care, the Justice Department alleged Thursday.
Southwest Key employees, including supervisors, have raped, touched or solicited sex and nude children in its care since at least 2015, the DOJ alleged in a lawsuit.
Based in Austin, Southwest Key is the largest provider of housing to unaccompanied migrant children, operating under grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It has 29 child migrant shelters: 17 in Texas, 10 in Arizona and two in California.
The lawsuit comes less than three weeks after a federal judge granted the Justice Department’s request to lift special court oversight of Health and Human Services’ care of unaccompanied migrant children. President Joe Biden’s administration argued that new safeguards rendered special oversight unnecessary 27 years after it began.
The Associated Press left a message with the company seeking comment Thursday.