The U.S. government is spending nearly $800 million to build more shelters to hold unaccompanied migrant children. 

But it’s turning out to be difficult for some of its chosen contractors to actually get those shelters open. Some, as we reported earlier, have documented histories of hiring underqualified staff and placing children in chokeholds -- or no experience in residential child care at all.

Take VisionQuest, which is the subject of the latest story from my colleagues Aura Bogado and Patrick Michels.

Recently, city and state officials have blocked VisionQuest from opening shelters in Philadelphia, San Antonio and Albuquerque.

Now, VisionQuest is setting its sights on Los Angeles. Aura and Patrick obtained notes from a September meeting between city officials and the company that say VisionQuest is seeking to lease a two-story building in a working-class neighborhood that will “host children who have entered the country as unaccompanied minors.”

Approval of VisionQuest’s plan may depend on whether the firm can argue that its proposal wouldn’t violate the city’s declaration that, “Private detention centers are not welcome in the City of Los Angeles, and we must ensure that none will ever be built or operated within its borders.” VisionQuest’s project team has already told the city that the shelter “would not be a detention facility,” city records show.

Sheltering migrant children would be a new financial venture for VisionQuest, which has been struggling to make a profit in the last few years. Before it won the grants to house migrant children in 2017, VisionQuest had business losses of around $700,000, according to financial audits. In the records, an auditor expressed “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

Throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, scandals plagued the company, which was repeatedly investigated for violent handling of children.

In a statement, CEO Mark Contento said the firm has “matured” over the years, and has “expanded and improved its method of service delivery by incorporating several evidence-based models into its programs.”The firm’s plans have already faced opposition from Los Angeles officials. After Aura and Patrick asked about the proposed plan, City Councilwoman Nury Martinez drafted a motion requesting that city staff review whether a shelter was the best use for the property.

“I am vehemently opposed to placing immigrant children in what some call holding facilities or detention centers,” she told us.

Read the story here.

HOW TRUMP IS DENYING VISAS TO THE VERY IMMIGRANTS HE SAYS HE WANTS

For the past eight months, Sinduja Rangarajan has been reporting on the government’s tightening of H1-B visas for high-skilled workers, first here at Reveal and now at Mother Jones.

Even though President Donald Trump has said he wants American companies to hire “totally brilliant” foreign workers, his administration is denying visas for skilled immigrants at a record rate, Sinduja has found.

Sinduja also learned something else: The number of H-1B-related appeals -- and reversals -- has also surged under Trump.

“We’re seeing very, very strange and unreasonable and illogical denials,” Michael Piston, a senior partner at an immigration law firm in Michigan, told her. “In the past, the agency at least made sense within its own context. ... Now it’s like they’ve stopped even trying to pretend to be fair or logical or reasonable.”

Sinduja spoke to a few workers whose lives in the U.S. were upended by their H1-B denials, including Sivaprasad Gali, a web developer at Tata Consultancy Services in Houston. His visa extension was denied in 2018 and he lost his job. Within two weeks, his family moved back to India.

“I broke my lease,” Gali said. “I didn’t even have the time to sell things on the internet or give it away to friends. I had to throw (away) everything.” 

Read the story here.

LISTEN TO OUR SHOW: BUILDING A WALL OUT OF RED TAPE

Immigration stories about the wall, family separation and the travel ban have captured the nation’s attention in the Trump years. Our latest Reveal hour goes deep into new and novel ways that institutions are harming immigrants’ opportunities to get visas and citizenship. 

In the first segment, produced by Teresa Cotsirilos, Sinduja walks us through her H1-B visa investigation and follows the story of Samir, an engineer in Dallas whose visa request was denied unexpectedly. 

I also teamed up with producer Ashley Cleek for a segment about my recent investigation that exposed how law enforcement routinely undermine a special visa for immigrant crime victims. My story highlighted the case of Nataly Alcantara, who was robbed at gunpoint inside her home in 2014. In our segment, Nataly recounts what happened to her and her family, and the Miami Police Department’s reluctance to help her gain protections under the U visa.

The hour ends with a story from “The World” reporter Monica Campbell about the growing wait times for citizenship approvals and the government’s proposal to raise the application fee by 83%. She tells the story through a citizenship ceremony in Oakland. As Patrick Michels described it on Twitter, “It's wild hearing the mismatch between the inclusiveness and patriotism at a citizenship ceremony, and the messaging from the folks who make the policy today.”

Listen to the show here.

OIG REPORT: OFFICIALS CAN’T CONFIRM TOTAL NUMBER OF SEPARATED FAMILIES

The Department of Homeland Security lacked the proper technology to track how many parents and children it separated during its “zero tolerance” crackdown last year, according to a new Office of Inspector General report.

When the government separated thousands of children from parents in the summer of 2018, it relied on “ad hoc methods” that led to “widespread errors.” For example, officials entered inaccurate data in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and also failed to document nearly 300 cases of family separation. 

One detention center supervisor told inspectors that it could take officers hours to obtain information on a single family because case details were kept in different formats, including email, spreadsheets, hard copies or system data.  

The report also notes that DHS officials knew they lacked the proper systems to track family separations because they ran into similar problems during a 2017 pilot program of the zero tolerance policy in El Paso.

“The following year, the same Acting Chief assisted in implementing Zero Tolerance and was aware of the need for improved coordination,” the report states.

Read the report here.

3 THINGS WE’RE READING

1. The government has regularly failed to document medical information for asylum-seekers, leading to inadequate care and deaths. (Politico)

Death records for 22 migrants in ICE detention indicate that officials failed to properly document patient care and scribbled details on the margins of forms. The documents support complaints from advocates for migrants “who say attention to the medical needs of asylum seekers is indifferent at best.”

The kicker: “I typically get a combination of scanned paper records and some printouts from electronic medical records,” said Parveen Parmar, a University of Southern California emergency medicine doctor who has reviewed the records of detainees, both dead and living, on behalf of immigration lawyers. “The records are challenging to read, generally completely disorganized, and records often reflect minimal/poor charting that doesn’t meet a community standard of care.”

2. Asylum-seekers sent back to Mexico to await their court hearing dates are not receiving proper medical treatment, experts say. (BuzzFeed News) 

Hundreds of immigrants, including children, are living in tents and tarps held up by ropes near the Rio Grande. Lawyers and physicians say they are often turned away from local clinics and hospitals. 

The kicker: Perry, a nurse practitioner, said the exposure, cramped conditions, and lack of clean water are concerning. Physicians are also worried about a flu or chicken pox outbreak, which could be particularly dangerous to vulnerable people like pregnant women. Customs and Border Protection had previously said it would not give flu vaccines to immigrants it detains, which would've included immigrants sent back to Mexico, despite recommendations from the CDC. Perry said she is hoping to start vaccinating immigrants at the camp soon.

3. A janitor working at a border facility saved migrants’ belongings from the trash. Then he photographed them. (Los Angeles Times)

While working as a janitor at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility in southern Arizona from 2003 to 2014, photographer Tom Kiefer noticed officers were throwing away migrants’ belongings, like CDs, hair brushes, water bottles and toothbrushes. An exhibit of his photographs is now open in Los Angeles.

The kicker: The first items to pull Kiefer’s attention were 15 to 20 toothbrushes. At the time, he didn’t think about photographing them. He just felt compelled to remove them from the trash. “When I started seeing a rosary, or a Bible, or a wallet, I realized that no one would believe me if I had not collected these items.”

Your tips have been vital to our immigration coverage. Keep them coming: [email protected]. 

– Laura C. Morel

Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.