The Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) will stop placing unaccompanied alien children (UACs) in care and placement shelters incorporated by the Southwest Key Program. The move was announced as a measure by the Trump administration to end sexual abuse and harassment at the UAC, which was placed in the facility during a search for U.S. sponsors.
Southwest Key operates 27 residential shelters offering temporary living plastic surgery in UACs in Texas, Arizona and California, and is the largest provider of such shelters in the United States for unaccompanied alien children. Southwest Key operates these shelters through grants from the HHS Refugee Resettlement Department. These children are minors who enter the United States without parents or other legal guardians, as well as legal immigrant status in the United States.
On Wednesday, HHS Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the decision to halt the deployment and immediately relocate the UAC to other shelters to a major facility in the southwest. In a statement announcing its decision to end UAC placement within the Southwest Key Program, Kennedy said:
“For too long, harmful actors have exploited such children before and after they entered the United States. Today's actions are an important step towards ending this innocent, innocent abuse,” Kennedy added.
Texas-based Southwest Key Programs Inc., which runs the affected shelter, announced Tuesday We have 5,000 employees working in non-profit facilities across the country. Southwest Key received more than $2 billion in federal funds for shelter services from 2021 to 2024, according to HHS Records. Biden administration.
According to the Department of Justice, in July 2024, the department filed a civil lawsuit against Southwest Key, claiming through employees that unaccompanied alien children are undergoing illegal sexual harassment and abuse. The agency will part ways with Southwest's main program due to continued concerns related to these placements. According to the DOJ, a review of federal grants with the organization will begin. The Justice Department has dismissed the lawsuit against Southwest Key following the actions of HHS.
In a DOJ announcement, Attorney General Pamela Bondy said: “Protecting our borders and protecting children from abuse is one of the most important duties of the Justice Department and the Trump administration.
Under the Biden administration, HHS's Refugee Resettlement Office (ORR) received referrals to care 468,929 Unaccompanied alien children abandoned in Mexico, USA The border between 2021 and 2024. In 2020, in the final year of the Trump administration's first term, the ORR received only 15,381 referrals for UAC arrests at the border.
Randy Clark He is a 32-year veteran of the US Border Patrol. Before retiring, he served as Chief of Law Enforcement Business and oversaw the operations of nine Border Patrol Bureaus in Del Rio, Texas. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @randyclarkbbtx.
