operating shelters for migrant children is a billion-dollar business

Baseball might need to take a back seat as America’s favorite pass-time because the US has made profiting off of detained black and brown bodies an art-form. Trump’s “Zero tolerance” policy on illegal border-crossing resulted in the inhumane family-separation practices that fueled outrage across the globe. The questionable logistics of housing the separated children propelled the once inconspicuous industry of housing migrant children into the limelight.

Texas non-profit Southwest Key finds itself at the center of the family separation controversy owing to its pre-existing reputation regarding housing migrant children that cross the border without a parent or guardian. It was reported by the New York Times that Southwest Key had received at least $955 million in federal contracts since 2015 – a number big enough to get Southwest Key embroiled in the outrage around the border separations when only 10% of the migrant youth under their supervision are victims of family separation. Alexia Rodriguez, Southwest Key’s vice president of immigrant children’s services maintained that Southwest doesn’t follow the Border Patrol (a branch of Homeland Security) practice of placing migrant children in cages.

“If we ever put a kid in a cage, we’d be shut down for mistreating children,” said Ms. Rodriguez. “People are conflating us with the facilities run by Border Patrol, which is a division of Homeland Security. We work with the social service side of the federal government. We are not law enforcement.” – New York Times

Southwest Key may be receiving all the heat but the industry they operate in is broad and shrouded in secrecy. There were reportedly 30 facilities in Texas alone and at least 100 in 16 other states in the US. Shelters in areas such as Rio Grande Valley serve as the region’s biggest employers. Contractors in the field range from small private prisons to religious organizations that claim to be doing humanitarian work by housing migrant children.

What happens inside the facilities is a mystery owing to a culture of Non-Disclosure Agreements that is not the norm for the non-profit field. This secrecy raises many questions around the running of the facilities and most importantly the treatment of the children. Southwest Key allowed a 90 min press tour throughout their repurposed Walmart in South Texas that houses migrant boy children and teenagers. He facilities were clean and neat with dorms, an old Mc Donalds as a cafeteria and various recreation areas. The facility looked up to scratch but it only begs the question of what we are not seeing and the loud silence around where female migrant youths are being housed.