Government contractors are depended upon to self-report sexual and other crimes against immigrant children....What could go wrong?

2016 Daily Caller article

Exclusive: Feds Refuse to Divulge Records of Assaults on Orphaned Immigrant Children in Their Care

 

Despite reports of rapes and other sexual assaults, federal officials refuse to divulge any information to the public about the safety of orphaned Central American children in facilities run by third-party contractors....

....2014 Freedom of Information Act response to the Houston Chronicle that there were 101 “significant incident reports” of sexual abuse of unaccompanied children in the contractor facilities.

Federal officials with ORR....depend upon contractors to self-report any crimes.

Agency spokesman Victoria Palmer told TheDCNF Friday that ORR officials don’t regularly compile sexual abuse or assault data of the immigrant children living at the facilities, stating, “the statistics you are requesting are not compiled or readily available.”

....secretive approach to ensuring the safety of unaccompanied immigrant children held in federally funded facilities managed by government contractors.

“The entire program is shrouded in secrecy....They don’t tell you where they are placing them...."

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell has not prosecuted a single federal employee for abuse of the immigrant children and claims ORR cannot discipline employees who work for the contractors, even when cases involve violent acts such as sexual assaults.

“There are no ORR employees currently being investigated by law enforcement for sexual misconduct or abuse involving unaccompanied children”....

http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/05/exclusive-feds-refuse-to-divulge-records-of-assaults-on-orphaned-immigrant-children-in-their-care/ ; archive

2014 Houston Chronicle investigation, referred to in the article above

“Crossing alone: Children fleeing to U.S. land in shadowy system”

 

The full extent of sexual and physical abuse in the federal shelters is unknown.

But for the first time, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Chronicle, the government has released copies of 101 "significant incident reports" from March 2011 to March 2013 involving abuse allegations against staff members.

Among the Chronicle's findings:

• Children and teenagers reported having sexual contact - ranging from kissing to unwanted touching to intercourse - with staff in Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois....

• Youths in ORR custody in Texas were molested as they slept, sexually harassed and seduced by staff members....They were shoved, kicked, punched and threatened with deportation if they reported abuses....

• No shelter worker has been prosecuted under a 2008 federal provision that makes sexual contact with a detainee in ORR's care a felony.

Cases repeatly fall apart

The Chronicle's investigation found that case after case fell apart after landing on the desks of local law enforcement.

A 39-year-old temporary worker at a Catholic Charities shelter in Cutler Bay, Fla., was fired in September 2011 after a 15-year-old boy told shelter administrators that she awakened him early one morning and led him into the shelter's laundry room and had sex with him. The case was referred to the Miami-Dade Police Department, but prosecutors ultimately declined to charge the worker. In the memo closing the case, the Miami-Dade State's Attorney's Office noted that the shelter "had custody of the child and did not wish to pursue prosecution of the subject."

A second boy, 16, reported to his aunt in California after he was released from the shelter that he had oral sex with the same worker. Police eventually interviewed the boy and told him he could press charges. By then he had turned 18, and he declined.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Crossing-alone-Children-fleeing-to-U-S-land-in-5503127.php ; archive