Austin Operator Of Migrant Children Detention Sites Resigns

AUSTIN, TEXAS — The founder and CEO of Austin-based Southwest Key — the nation's largest provider of detention facilities for migrant children — has resigned from his post amid backlash related to financial enrichment amid bolstered immigration laws enforcement, according to reports.

Juan Sanchez runs Southwest Key, which a New York Times Exposé found was earning more in salary even while running what is, on paper, a nonprofit — more than his counterparts at larger, better-known groups such as the American Red Cross. The website Vice News was the first to report on the resignation.

The Times found the septuagenarian Sanchez was paid $1.5 million in 2017 — more than twice what his counterpart at the exponentially larger American Red Cross earned. The report spawned investigations by the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice.

In his resignation letter, Sanchez alluded to the glare of bad publicity as the group has zealously participated in the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy to crack down on undocumented immigrants' entry into the U.S. from the southern border. The centerpiece of the crackdown is separating women from their children upon their crossing the border rather than keeping them detained together, a policy widely decried amid reports of migrant children being placed in cages at various detention facilities.

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“Recent events have convinced me and our Board of Directors that Southwest Key would benefit from a fresh perspective and new leadership,” Sanchez wrote in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by Vice News. Yet despite mounting evidence of personal enrichment and inhumane practices, Sanchez remained defiant: “Widespread misunderstanding of our business and unfair criticism of our people have become a distraction our employees do not deserve, and I can no longer bear. It’s time for new beginnings.”

It was a December New York Times story on Southwest Key that first shed light operations of the locally run nonprofit. Among other things, the report found Southwest Key reported $246.6 million in revenue in 2016 as it operated two dozen detention facilities housing migrant children throughout Texas, Arizona and California. Southwest Key also runs a charter school, East Austin College Prep Academy.

The most dramatic protest against the group's operations was seen last month, when a woman scaled the East Austin headquarters of Southwest Key as she kept police at bay for several hours before climbing back down.

>>> Read the full story at Vice News

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