They will become "rich" with the separation of families on the US border

Donald Trump's government plans to pay a non-profit organization nearly $ 500 million this year to care for immigrant children who were detained while crossing the US border illegal way

According to the administration itself, the non-profit organization Southwest Key Programs headquartered in Texas, will receive more than $ 458 million in 2018, the figure the highest among organizations, government agencies and businesses that operate a system for the custody and care of immigrant children on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Services. Southwest Key has about a dozen centers in Texas including one in a former Walmart in Brownsville, which has attracted the attention of lawmakers and news agencies.

President Donald Trump has been criticized by both parties for his "zero tolerance" policy towards families crossing the US-Mexico border illegally. According to this policy, all undocumented adults crossing the border must be arrested and prosecuted, even if their intention is to seek asylum. As a result, the children are separated from their parents and placed in the custody of US authorities, first in a short pbadage through the Border Patrol Centers of the Department of Homeland Security and then transferred to the Refugee Relocation Office. of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF, for its acronym), an agency of the Ministry of Health.

The Refugee Office hosts and supports nearly 12,000 immigrant children, according to Steve Wagner, acting deputy secretary of the ACF. Of these, more than 2,000 were separated from their parents or other caregivers after crossing the border, under the Trump policy announced in April; the rest has entered the country alone.

The government expects to spend $ 943 million in 2018 for custody and child care, according to the ACF, a figure that could increase as the Trump administration apprehends more families crossing the border. The government has spent $ 958 million on this concept for the entire fiscal year 2017, according to their data. The ACF has not responded to questions regarding this data and the government's detention system. Southwest Key has not responded to our messages either.

The refuge at Homestead

ACF data are not updated and may not reflect an expansion of the detention center system. For example, on June 19, two Florida lawmakers (Senator Bill Nelson and Deputy Debbie Wbaderman Schultz, both Democrats) attempted to enter a detention center in Homestead, Florida, managed by Comprehensive Health Services. But they were denied access. "Tonight, they'll hear me explode like a volcano in the Senate," Nelson told reporters later.

The company does not appear in the records of what the government calls " Unaccompanied Foreign Children Program ". But there is rather a contract signed in February for "emergency shelters" of 500 immigrant children. The contract was extended May 4 to provide beds for a thousand children, and the company will receive $ 31 million.

Comprehensive Health had previously been hired by the Obama administration as part of another program entitled "Shelter for Unaccompanied Children" in order to take care of children. immigrant children detained at the border.

The Homestead Comprehensive Health Center worked with Obama, but it was closed last year. Wbaderman Schultz said that it was reopened this year without notice.

Gail Hart, a spokesperson for Comprehensive Health Services, declined to say when the detention center was reopened and forwarded all questions to the Administration for Children and Families.

An old Wal-Mart

The former Walmart Store in Brownsville, Texas that Southwest Key converted to a detention center is owned by the local limited liability company Chacbak, according to property records. The company owns at least one other local building also rented by Southwest Key, a former hospital converted to a migrant children's detention center in 2013, according to the Brownsville Herald.

Two groups of Democratic legislators visited the former Walmart, now called Casa Padre, which hosted about 1,500 children during the most complicated part of the migrant crisis. In addition, a group of Democrats from the House of Representatives visited Casa Presidente, a small center in Southwest Key that is home to smaller children. Legislators reported meeting with children under one year old who had been separated from their parents or caregivers and had been on the premises for more than a month.

"If the president has a heart, how can he allow that to happen?" Said representative Ben Ray Lujan in an interview. "I should come over to see one of these babies, maybe charge him, maybe I would feel something, maybe that would make me reconsider."

It is striking that Southwest Key has rapidly increased the compensation of its executive director, Juan Sánchez, from about $ 269,000 in 2010 to over $ 786,000 in 2015, the most recent year available data for his tax returns. of the Guidestar.org website. Sanchez's compensation has nearly doubled to one million 500 thousand dollars in 2016, according to tax records from a subsidized school in Austin founded by him.

The federal government paid Southwest Key $ 211 million in 2016 and $ 286 million in 2017, according to the ACF. This year, the figure will rise to $ 458 million or nearly half of the $ 943 million it expects to spend in this region.

The organization is expanding its operations. The Houston Chronicle reported on June 19 that Southwest Key had rented an industrial facility in that city to build a detention center that could accommodate up to 240 children, most of whom are under the age of 12.