Fernandez tours immigrant child facility
Yuma Rep., other legislators given access to Tucson building
Rep. Charlene Fernandez, DYuma, was among 13 state legislators given a tour of a Tucson facility housing almost 300 unaccompanied immigrant children Friday, an event that she said answered some questions but gave rise to other ones.
All of the children she saw were well-behaved and appeared to be well cared-for, she said, but there seemed to be little there to make it welcoming to the youths aged 5 to 17, who sleep four to a room in bunk beds.
Watching what appeared to be a group of teenagers who were walking to lunch, Fernandez said, “a couple of them waved, and they didn’t keep them from waving at us or looking at us, but most of them had their eyes down, and were following the one in front of them.”
She added, “I’m not being critical or saying they’re being mistreated at all. It’s just that from a mom’s point of view, it’s heartbreaking.”
She said the converted hotel operated by Texas-based nonprofit Southwest Key Programs was just six kids below its full capacity at 294, including 72 who had been separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy against unauthorized border crossers bringing their children.
As of last month 83 children had been there as a result of the separations, and only 11 had been reunified with relatives since then, Fernandez said. She did not know why so few reunifications had been accomplished.
On its website, Southwest Key
Programs refers all questions about its Unaccompanied Minor Program to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
A statement on the website says, “Southwest Key Programs does not support separating families at the border. For 30 years, our work in offering youth justice alternatives, immigrant children’s shelters, and education has served to improve the lives of thousands of young people.
“We believe keeping families together is better for the children, parents and our communities, and we remain committed to providing compassionate care and reunification,” the statement continued.
The rest of the children being sheltered there likely had arrived in the country unaccompanied by a parent or guardian, Fernandez said.
Some had been detained by officials in the Border Patrol’s Arizona sectors, including Yuma. She was told many were brought there by bus from El Paso or other distant cities where similar shelters had reached capacity.”
The majority of the youth sheltered there were originally from Guatemala or nearby in northern Central America, a sizable number of them from indigenous tribes that had an additional language barrier because they weren’t fluent in Spanish. “I didn’t see toys; my colleague mentioned that they didn’t have a playground setting like swings or a slide, or anything like that. They said several of the kids were very artistic, and they had kids that could go into a room where they could paint, but I didn’t see a room where they could play with toys,” she said.
Fernandez did see a volleyball court on the grounds, but the former hotel’s pool had been filled in with dirt.
As large as the shelter’s capacity is, the children were outnumbered by a staff of about 400, Fernandez said she was told. Fernandez said it also shows there’s a lot of money being made from Southwest Key’s government contracts.
“I am thinking dollars and cents. What is this costing? Where is this money coming from? It’s a huge contract,” she said.
General Dynamics has the IT contract for the facility, she said.
“I worked for the federal government long enough to know General Dynamics is not going to handle the IT for shelters at a minimal cost,” she said. “This is a moneymaker, and I’m not saying this shelter is getting rich off of this, but someone is.”
Southwest Key operates youth justice programs and charter schools in underserved areas, along with the unaccompanied minor shelters, its website says. It has a presence in seven states, including Arizona.
Other shelters for immigrant children are run by different federal contractors who don’t meet the same standards as Southwest Key, Fernandez said, including one in an office building in Phoenix, which was shut down only after a
neighbor reported seeing children being bused in at night.
Fernandez said people need to be aware of their surroundings and any suspicious activity, and the nation as a whole needs to rethink its approach to immigrant children in its custody, whether they were separated from family at the border or arrived without one.
“We need to be really careful about the policies that we make, and who they affect, because these kids are going to remember this for the rest of their lives.
“And I think we’re going to remember this for the rest of our lives. I know it made an impact on me and our colleagues. It was very, very sad,” she said.