Fights, escapes, harm: Kids struggle in migrant facilities
Detained children undergoing trauma, specialists say
In one government facility for immigrant youth, a 20-year-old woman who had lied that she was 17 sneaked a needle out of a sewing class and used it to cut herself.
In another, cameras captured a boy repeatedly kicking a child in the head after they got into an argument on the soccer field.
One 6-year-old tried to run away from the same facility after another boy threw his shoes into the toilet. Three employees had to pull the boy off a fence and carry him back into a building.
Records obtained by The Associated Press highlight some of the problems that plague government facilities for immigrant youth at a time when President Donald Trump’s administration has been making moves in recent weeks that could send even more migrant children into detention.
About 14,000 immigrant children are currently detained in more than
100 facilities nationally, with about 5,900 in Texas. Many crossed the border without their parents and are having to wait longer in detention to be placed with relatives or sponsors, who are being dissuaded to come forward out of fear they’ll be arrested and deported.
Hundreds of children who were separated from their parents earlier this year were also detained in these facilities, but most of them have since been released to their parents.
Amid the global uproar over family separation, the Trump administration presented the facilities as caring, safe places for immigrant children.
But as records obtained by the AP show, the child detention system is already overtaxed. Children are acting out, sometimes hitting each other and trying to escape, and staff members struggle to deal with escalating problems.
Doctors have warned for months about the consequences of detaining children for long periods of time, particularly after most of them had fled violence and poverty in Central America and undertaken the dangerous journey to the U.S.
“Being in detention can be a form of trauma,” said Dr. Alan Shapiro, a pediatrician who works directly with immigrant children. “We can’t treat children for trauma while we’re traumatizing them at the same time.”
Southwest Key Programs, a Texas-based nonprofit, operates the facilities where the three incidents occurred. In Arizona, the organization agreed in October to close two facilities and stop accepting more children at others as part of a settlement with the state, which was investigating whether the organization conducted adequate background checks of staff. One former employee was convicted this year of sexually abusing multiple boys.
Meanwhile, in Texas, Southwest Key is pushing to expand. It has sued Houston after local officials tried to stop the opening of a facility.
In a statement, Southwest Key said it reported all three incidents on its own and that it was committed to correcting any problems.
“As long as immigrant children are forced to leave their homes due to violence and poverty, we want to provide them with compassionate care and help reunify them with family safely and quickly,” the group said.