The nonprofit Southwest Key Programs has long held a federal contract to shelter migrant children in Arizona and other states.
Now the Justice Department has filed a fair-housing lawsuit against Southwest Key alleging that its workers were sexually abusing kids in their care for years.
Migrant children who show up alone at the U-S Mexico border become temporary wards of the U.S. government, which pays Southwest Key to house them.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit against Southwest Key details several alleged incidents in Arizona. For example in 2020, a Southwest Key worker reportedly left the shelter with a teenage boy and paid him for sex at a hotel.
The boy was allegedly staying at the same Southwest Key facility where another worker was previously convicted of sexually abusing other boys.
Southwest Key says the complaint does not give an accurate picture of how its staff care for children.
