Taxpayers have shelled out millions to private companies operating facilities cited for child abuse
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More than 2,000 migrant kids have been separated from their parents at the U.S/Mexico border since Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III announced the administration’s brutal “zero tolerance” policy earlier this year, and a disturbing report from Reveal anTaxpayers have shelled out millions to private companies operating facilities cited for child abuse
More than 2,000 migrant kids have been separated from their parents at the U.S/Mexico border since Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III announced the administration’s brutal “zero tolerance” policy earlier this year, and a disturbing report from Reveal and The Texas Tribune finds that some have been sent to facilities, operated by private companies through contracts from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), that have been “accused of serious lapses in care, including neglect and sexual and physical abuse”: In Texas, where the resettlement agency awarded the majority of the grants, state inspectors have cited homes with more than 400 deficiencies, about one-third of them serious. That includes “staff members’ failure to seek medical attention for children,” including kids who have suffered burns, broken wrists, even a sexually transmitted infection. Another facility, run by Southwest Key, was cited after an employee drove to work drunk. “A drug test later found he was over the legal alcohol limit to drive. That was among the 246 violations state inspectors found at Southwest Key’s facilities, including rotten bananas and shampoo dispensers filled with hand sanitizer.” Southwest Key’s contract should have been canceled immediately. This is child abuse. Instead, one of its largest facilities, a former Walmart in Brownsville, has increased its capacity from 1,200 to 1,500 in order to cope with the administration’s surge in arrests. Another facility in Florida, which briefly shut down after an employee “was sentenced to 10 years in prison in November for engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior with minors,” reopened earlier this year after a $20 million contract from ORR. Taxpayers have paid these companies “more than $1.5 billion in the past four years,” and legislators who have visited facilities say staffers who actually are dedicated to protecting children under their care have not been given any assurances they’ll get resources they need. Read more