‘We have already caught staff with minors inappropriately’: recordings indicate sexual misconduct at migrant shelter, according to report
This article features Government Accountability Project and was originally published here.
Audio obtained by NBC News from a May staff training session at Fort Bliss appears to capture a federal contractor discussing staff sexual misconduct with minors.
Fort Bliss, located just miles from the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, is used by the federal government to shelter unaccompanied migrant children.
“We have already caught staff with minors inappropriately,” the contractor said, according to NBC. “If you catch them, especially if it’s a staff member, you separate that minor from that person immediately.”
NBC reported that the facility held about 3,000 minors at the time of the training session.
Some of the facilities holding children are run by contractors already facing lawsuits claiming that children were physically and sexually abused in their shelters, while others are new companies with little or no experience working with migrant children, according to the Associated Press.
On July 28, the Government Accountability Project filed its second complaint this month regarding abuses of unaccompanied immigrant children at Fort Bliss.