The U.S. Department of Justice has dropped a lawsuit against Southwest Key Programs, a major provider of shelters for unaccompanied migrant children, which accused its employees of sexually abusing children housed in its facilities.
The Trump administration on Wednesday announced the dismissal after relocating all the children to other shelters and deciding it would no longer send migrant children to Southwest Key or use its facilities, according to a joint statement from the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Justice. The administration is also conducting a review of all of its financial grants to the organization.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. called the decision to stop using Southwest Key a “significant step toward ending this appalling abuse of innocents.”
Southwest Key said it was “pleased” with the Justice Department’s decision, adding that it “strongly denied the claims relating to child sexual abuse in our shelters, and there is no settlement or payment required,” the organization said in a statement.
On Monday, Southwest Key notified its staff of furloughs after receiving a stop-placement notice from the government for all of its housing programs for migrant children. "This unexpected notice has created a challenging situation for Southwest Key," the organization said.
Southwest Key, the largest provider of migrant shelters in the U.S., operates 27 residential shelters for unaccompanied migrant children across Texas, Arizona and California.
The lawsuit, filed by the Justice Department in July 2024, accused Southwest Key employees of sexually abusing and molesting children in its care. The lawsuit includes scores of evidence, reports and documented instances of sexual abuse and harassment by Southwest Key staff at all levels.
All cases of sexual abuse have been documented by Southwest Key itself in reports filed with the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
One case alleges that a worker repeatedly sexually assaulted a 5-year-old girl, an 8-year-old girl, and an 11-year-old girl at its Casa Franklin facility in El Paso, Texas in 2022. The 8-year-old girl said the caseworker “repeatedly entered their bedrooms in the middle of the night to touch their ‘private area’,” threatening to murder their families if they reported the abuse.
In another report, a supervisor at Casa Montezuma, another Texas shelter, “repeatedly raped, abused, and threatened a teenage girl” in 2019. The girl was transferred to another shelter after giving a teacher a written note about the abuse while the supervisor was on vacation.
In a third case, described in “numerous” reports, a care worker at an Arizona facility took a fifteen-year-old boy to a hotel room “for several days,” where he paid the child for sexual acts. The employee was later charged with attempted sexual conduct with a minor in 2022.
Despite the Justice Department dropping the case, the National Center for Youth Law (NYCL), a nonprofit law firm, has asked a district court to delay the dismissal to allow time to file a motion to formally intervene on behalf of the victims.
“The Justice Department’s reprehensible actions here not only erode any semblance of accountability but also embolden those who would exploit and abuse vulnerable children. It is a betrayal of the government’s legal and moral obligation to protect these young lives,” said Johnathan Smith, NCYL’s Chief of Staff and General Counsel.
