Migrant kids housed in Bay Area shelter.

PLEASANT HILL >> Two adolescent girls separated from their parents at the U.S.Mexico border under President Trump’s controversial “zero tolerance” policy are being held at a children’s shelter in Pleasant Hill in Contra Costa County, according to emails obtained exclusively Monday by this news organization.

A spokeswoman for Southwest Key -- a nonprofit network of shelters that houses unaccompanied children across three states under contracts with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement -- confirmed Monday to the city of Pleasant Hill that the facility there is housing two girls who were separated from their parents.

“There are two adolescent girls in our care that we are working diligently to reunify with their parents,” two Southwest Key employees wrote in an email to city spokesman Martin Nelis. That email was forwarded to Nelis by Southwest Key spokeswoman Cindy Casares. The ages of the girls were not specified.

The emails confirm for the first time that at least two migrant children -- detained at the border and separated from their parents under a White House policy aimed to prosecute everyone who immigrated to the U.S. illegally -- have ended up at shelters in the Bay Area.

The Pleasant Hill facility -- a ranch-style house between two churches -- holds up to 25 children, including “unattended” children who have crossed the border without their parents and were apprehended by federal authorities before they were able to connect with parents or relatives in the United States. When contacted by this news organization, Southwest Key spokesman Jeff Eller would not confirm whether the shelter included the two girls, saying only that across their 26 shelters in California, Arizona and Texas, 90 percent of the children are “unaccompanied” and the remaining 10 percent were separated from their parents at the border.

“We draw no distinction between a kid apprehended unaccompanied and one separated from their family,” Eller said in a phone interview Monday evening from his office in Austin, Texas. “There is no distinction made inside. They get the same care and consideration every other kid does.”

Children remain at their facilities an average of 52 days, he said, 10 days longer than the 42 days on average before Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy went into effect in April.

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, DConcord, who first learned of the two migrant girls at Southwest Key through this news organization, said Monday he isn’t surprised that some of the children have been sent to shelters in California, and, most recently, the Bay Area.

“I think the most important thing is to make sure the two young people are safe, well-treated for and that (Southwest Key) is working to reunite them with their families as quickly as possible,” he said.

Their arrival comes a week after Trump signed an executive order halting the separation of families seeking asylum at the border and as federal officials scramble to reunite thousands of children already separated. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Friday created an unaccompanied children reunification task force to begin working toward reuniting families.

Although the Pleasant Hill facility is authorized to house children as young as 6, a staff member on Monday said the youngest there now is 13 and the oldest is 17.

The email from Southwest Key employees said that the children are not leaving the facility except for medical appointments “because of safety and security concerns due to the current political climate. Since last week, we have continued to receive calls from concerned citizens and have even had citizens coming to our door and inquiring about our services with both negative and positive comments.”

But before noon on Monday, about a dozen teenage boys and girls were spotted loading into two minivans. They pulled away but one briefly returned. The sliding door opened and a basketball was thrown into the back. One of the boys in the front seat seemed to be nodding his head along to music.

Neighbors, including a pastor at the Seventh Day Adventist Church and an elder at a Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall nearby, said they noticed nothing unusual at the home. They sometimes noticed teenagers walking down the street with a staff member, presumably to a nearby park or to a 7-Eleven store.

“They’re very quiet neighbors. I always thought they were orphans or children at risk,” said Pastor Mitch Williams of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. “I understand it’s a secret -- not a lot of people from the public know they’re there.”

Joyce Azevedo, who runs a paint stripping company across a shared parking lot, said she’s barely had interaction with the staff or the kids.

“I always thought it was an old folks’ home and the kids there were in there to do volunteer work,” she said in an interview Monday. “It just goes to show you that things aren’t as they seem.”

Eller from Southwest Key said the company doesn’t like to draw attention to the shelters because the children can be at risk for human traffickers or others who don’t have their best interests in mind. The children have a daily routine, he said, starting at 7 a.m. They have breakfast and have classes for six hours at the facility, learning the basics of math, history and other subjects. There is time for counseling and mental health needs, he said, as well as two hours of recreation a day. Bedtime is 9 p.m.

The shelter tries to arrange two phone calls a week with a parent or relative, but that is “complicated if a parent is in detention.” The shelter are also filled with TVs, games, playing cards and snacks, Eller said.

He emphasized that despite recent reports, the assertion that shelters forbid hugging is “an internet myth.”

“Like every facility, we have an appropriate touching policy,” he said. “We hug them and hold them and we do every day.”

Most of the children are “almost always under stress and some have experienced trauma,” he said. The majority come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, “and the journey through the jungle and high desert alone has caused stress,” he said.

Some cross the border with notes pinned to their clothing, with a name of a relative in the U.S. and a phone number, he said.

The children often go on field trips to movies, amusement parks and other places, he said, with a shelter chaperone. But if a child chooses to leave, he said, “we can’t restrain them.”

If a child wants to leave, he said, staff often tries to persuade them otherwise, saying something like, “We can provide more support here if you stay than on your own.”

Last week, the converted Walmart in Brownsville, Texas, made headlines when a teenager walked away. Eller said it’s rare for a child to leave and he didn’t know whether any child had tried to leave the Pleasant Hill facility.

“We’d be grateful if there came a time when there was no child at risk or in need. Until there is, we’re going to give them compassionate care,” Eller said. “I hope there’s a time we’re not in the business.”