The Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) has stopped placing Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) in shelters run by Southwest Key Programs Incorporated. The shelters have been at the center of controversies involving the exploitation of children and abuse.
Southwest Key has operated 27 shelters across Texas, Arizona, and California through grants from the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement. After a 2024 lawsuit alleged that Southwest Key “subjected unaccompanied alien children in its care to unlawful sexual harassment and abuse,” HHS moved to end the placement of children in the shelters, a release from the Department of Justice (DOJ) says.
“This administration is working fearlessly to end the tragedy of human trafficking and other abuses of unaccompanied alien children who enter the country illegally,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “For too long, pernicious actors have exploited such children both before and after they enter the United States. Today’s action is a significant step toward ending this appalling abuse of innocents.”
Attorney General Pamela Bondi said, “Securing our border and protecting children from abuse are among the most critical missions of the Department of Justice and the Trump administration. Under the border policies of the previous administration, bad actors were incentivized to exploit children and break our laws: this ends now.”
Last year, dozens of GOP members of Congress condemned the previous White House administration for its handling of the hundreds of thousands of UACs entering the United States. Republicans claimed the administration engaged in a “cover-up,” concealing information pertaining to the migrant children.
The letter claimed the Biden administration “[cut] back on information sharing between HHS ORR and law enforcement related to unaccompanied children and sponsors,” while also stripping Customs and Border Protection officials of their “ability to conduct familial DNA testing,” making smuggling and trafficking children “much easier.”
