On this week’s episode, host Al Letson sits down with immigration reporter Aura Bogado to discuss her latest story, which uncovered a growing network of shelters to house infants, toddlers and other young asylum-seekers. Records Bogado obtained indicate that a dozen children arrived at one facility, Child Crisis Arizona, beginning in mid-June. The facility has garnered a $2.4 million contract to house unaccompanied children through 2022, despite recent citations for hazardous conditions, incomplete record-keeping and more.
The children are from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador and Brazil. Some of them entered the facility in early July, and they are all living there without parents. When Bogado asked where exactly their parents are, Child Crisis didn’t respond, and the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement told her it was working on a response. That was last week.
These new revelations come amid renewed outrage over the shocking, squalid conditions in which the U.S. government has forced new migrants to live. Advocates who visited detention facilities in June spoke about flu quarantines, lice infestations and babies drinking milk out of dirty bottles. A Department of Homeland Security report released July 2 detailed “dangerous overcrowding” at migrant holding facilities and included shocking photos of adults and children packed into cells.
At some of the shelters she investigated this month, Bogado has confirmed that it’s taken more than two weeks to get children legal assistance. That’s despite the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which requires that vulnerable children be in direct contact with advocates.
“Getting access to legal help is a big issue,” Bogado says.
This story is the latest from our immigration team, which has spent the past year examining the long-lasting effects of the Trump administration’s family separation policies. They’ve investigated facilities that were administering psychotropic drugs to immigrant children without consent, government contractors that were warehousing kids in a vacant Phoenix office building, a network of secret government shelters and much more.
Also in the episode …
We’re revisiting a story from December 2018 that exposed how the Jesuits, a society within the Catholic Church, shuffled priests accused of sexual abuse around Native communities for years. Then, in some cases, these priests retired on Gonzaga University’s campus.
Hear the episode.
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Documents show: Forwarding this email to a friend will help you avoid physical confrontations that also happen to be unfortunate puns.
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