After all these are only migrant children being abuse, right. These people turn a blind eye to clergy abuse but claim just knowing LGBTQ+ people exist is sexualizing children. Just having a story read to them by a man dressed up in costume as a woman is sexual abuse, seeing a drag show is sexual abuse and they demand the erasing of drag queens along with all the LGBTQ+ to save the children. But a for profit detention center creditably accused of forced oral, anal, and in the cases of girls vaginal rape of children by staff as a means of punishment or control, that is OK because the kids are not white. Sick as fuck. Hugs
The lawsuit against Southwest Key included allegations of abuse at an El Paso facility. The administration said it will no longer use the company’s services.
Southwest Key national headquarters in Austin. A federal lawsuit against the company over allegations of abuse at its child migrant shelters has been dropped by the Trump administration. Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune
Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give us feedback.
Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
McALLEN — The Trump administration moved to drop a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the largest provider of housing for migrant children over allegations of sexual abuse and harassment of unaccompanied minors, saying it also would no longer be using that company’s services.
The motion to dismiss the suit against Austin-based Southwest Key Programs was filed after the federal government announced it had moved all unaccompanied children to other shelters and would no longer be using that provider.
The complaint, filed last year during the Biden administration, alleged a litany of offenses between 2015 and 2023 as Southwest Key Programs, which operates migrant shelters in Texas, Arizona and California, amassed nearly $3 billion in contracts from the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Out of continuing concerns relating to these placements, HHS has decided to stop placement of unaccompanied alien children in Southwest Key facilities, and to review its grants with the organization. In view of HHS’ action, the Department of Justice has dismissed its lawsuit against Southwest Key,” the HHS said in a statement.
Children were warned not to report the alleged abuse and threatened with violence against themselves or their families if they did, according to the lawsuit. Victims testified that in some instances, other workers knew about the abuse but failed to report or concealed it, the complaint said.
“DOJ’s lawsuit revealed horrific sexual abuse and inhumane treatment of children detained in Southwest Key shelters,” said Leecia Welch, an attorney who represents unaccompanied children in a separate case. “It’s shocking to me that the government now turns a blind eye to their own contractor’s actions. I hope the impacted children will have other legal recourse and support in healing from their abuse.”
At least two employees have been indicted on criminal charges related to the allegations since 2020.
The civil lawsuit had sought a jury trial and monetary damages for the victims.
Southwest Key Programs furloughed employees across the country. “Due to the unforeseen federal funding freeze and the stop placement order on our unaccompanied minor shelters and Home Study Post Release programs by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, we have made the difficult decision to furlough approximately 5,000 Southwest Key Programs’ employees,” the company said in a statement shared Tuesday.
According to allegations in the 2024 lawsuit, Southwest Key employees, including supervisors, raped, inappropriately touched or solicited sex and nude images of children beginning in 2015 and possibly earlier.
Among the accusations: One employee “repeatedly sexually abused” three girls ages 5, 8 and 11 at the Casa Franklin shelter in El Paso, with the 8-year-old telling investigators the worker “entered their bedrooms in the middle of the night to touch their ‘private area.’ ”
The lawsuit also alleged that another employee, at a shelter in Mesa, Arizona, took a 15-year-old boy to a hotel and paid him to perform sexual acts for several days in 2020.
Children were warned not to report the alleged abuse and threatened with violence against themselves or their families if they did, according to the lawsuit. Victims testified that in some instances, other workers knew about the abuse but failed to report or concealed it, the complaint said.
“DOJ’s lawsuit revealed horrific sexual abuse and inhumane treatment of children detained in Southwest Key shelters,” said Leecia Welch, an attorney who represents unaccompanied children in a separate case. “It’s shocking to me that the government now turns a blind eye to their own contractor’s actions. I hope the impacted children will have other legal recourse and support in healing from their abuse.”
At least two employees have been indicted on criminal charges related to the allegations since 2020.
The civil lawsuit had sought a jury trial and monetary damages for the victims.
March 7, 1932 The Ford Hunger March began on Detroit’s east side and proceeded 10 miles seeking relief during the Great Depression. Facing hunger and evictions, workers had formed neighborhood Unemployed Councils. Along the route, the marchers were given good wishes from Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy as well as two motorcycle escorts, and thousands joined the marchers along the route. At the Detroit city limit, the marchers were met by Dearborn police and doused by fire hoses. Despite the cold weather, they continued to the Employment Office of the Ford River Rouge plant, from which there had been massive layoffs. Five workers were killed and nineteen wounded by police and company “security” armed with pistols, rifles and a machine gun. Dave Moore According to Dave Moore, one of the marchers, “That blood was black blood and white blood. One of the photos that was published in the Detroit Times, but never seen since, shows a black woman, Mattie Woodson, wiping the blood off the head of Joe DiBlasio, a white man who lay there dying . . .
It’s been 75 years, but when you drive down Miller Road today, your car tires will be moistened with the blood that those five shed.” Grave markers with the words “His Life for the Union” pay tribute to the fallen hunger marchers in Woodmere Cemetery on Detroit’s west side.
March 7, 1965 525 civil rights advocates began a 54-mile march on a Sunday morning from Selma, Alabama, to the capital of Montgomery, to promote voting rights for blacks. Just after crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the outskirts of Selma, the marchers were attacked in what became known as Bloody Sunday. Enforcing an order by Governor George Wallace, the group was broken up by state troopers and volunteer officers of the Dallas County sheriff who used tear gas, nightsticks, bullwhips and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire. John Lewis, then head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a leader of the march, suffered a fractured skull.John Lewis was elected a member of Congress from Georgia in 1986 and served till his death in 2020.ABC television interrupted a Nazi war crimes documentary, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” to show footage of the violence in Selma, confusing some viewers about who was beating whom. Injured in Selma Selma 1965 – Edmund Pettus Bridge, video excerpt from a PBS documentary with Rep. John Lewis and others who were there Read more
March 7, 1988 A Federal Court ruled in Atlanta, Georgia, that a peace group must have the same access to students at high school career days as military recruiters. the anti-recruitment movement today: LEAVE MY CHILD ALONE!
I had a recorded video to go with this post but I can’t access it right now. But think of what this will let happen giving Russian military free rein over elections and disinformation. The conspiracy shit and hate pitting one group against the other will destroy the country in 4 years. Hugs