Sexual Abuse in Immigrant youth shelters?

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Who could have foreseen this? Pro Publica obtained records from 2/3 of the nation's shelters and the picture is pretty ugly. This is highly disturbing to read, but not surprising.

Immigrant Youth Shelters: “If You’re a Predator, It’s a Gold Mine”

Just five days after he reached the United States, the 15-year-old Honduran boy awoke in his Tucson, Arizona, immigrant shelter one morning in 2015 to find a youth care worker in his room, tickling his chest and stomach.

When he asked the man, who was 46, what he was doing, the man left. But he returned two more times, rubbing the teen’s penis through his clothing and then trying to reach under his boxers. “I know what you want, I can give you anything you need,” said the worker, who was later convicted of molestation.

In 2017, a 17-year-old from Honduras was recovering from surgery at the shelter when he woke up to find a male staff member standing by his bed. “You have it very big,” the man said, referring to the teen’s penis. Days later, that same employee brushed the teen with his hand while he was playing video games. When the staff member approached him again, the boy locked himself in a bathroom.

And in January of this year, a security guard at the shelter found notes in a minor’s jacket that suggested an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.

Pulled from police reports, incidents like these at Southwest Key’s Tucson shelter provide a snapshot of what has largely been kept from the public as well as members of Congress — a view, uncolored by politics, of troubling incidents inside the facilities housing immigrant children.

https://www.propublica.org/article/immigrant-youth-shelters-sexual-abuse-fights-missing-children?token=d0bN47zStvHcmbER7GvkvKAYTIy9JN7t

[SummerSnow]

1. GRRRRRR I FUCKING HATE THIS SHIT!!!!

[Doreen]

2. I knew this crap was going to happen.

By the way, were are the girls? You still only hear about or see the boys concentration camps. Have the girls been sold into slavery by our government?

[oberliner]

5. Been happening for many many years sadly

Heartbreaking to read these awful stories of abuse.

[haele]

6. I'm not suprised at all, considering the make-up of the leadership of "Homeland Security"...

Those "law and order" types make their own laws and always turtle up if there's any potential oversight to their little kingdoms. It's a "Fort Apache" mentality; they're supposed to be saving civilian lives by upholding "the law" - right or wrong, which means that any criticism only comes from people who are disrespecting them as well as "the law". Poor boos feel unappreciated, since they're not able to be automatically assumed at all times to be knights in shining armor.

And if there's profit to be made or less paperwork to be concerned about, it's a very easy step for the supervisory management levels to ignore misconduct and mistreatment - especially when there might be a language barrier and all the victims/witnesses are being processed out of the country.

It's both a leadership and funding issue. If leadership doesn't take professionalism seriously - as in, ensure it's enforced - and/or can't fund the oversight processes, crap like this happens.

Haele

[2naSalit]

3. I expected nothing less...

given the mindset of those who approve of this travesty.

[oberliner]

4. Many of the incidents of abuse described in this report are from 2014-2015

[lpbk2713]

7. Probably the tip of the iceberg.

How many others are too frightened to say anything? Or don't know who to tell?