{"id":608043,"date":"2018-07-29T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2018-07-29T13:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=608043"},"modified":"2018-07-30T09:47:40","modified_gmt":"2018-07-30T15:47:40","slug":"immigrant-youth-shelters-if-youre-a-predator-its-a-gold-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/07\/immigrant-youth-shelters-if-youre-a-predator-its-a-gold-mine\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigrant youth shelters: &#8216;If you\u2019re a predator, it&#8217;s a gold mine&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_593761\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-593761\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_3-771x517.jpg\" alt=\"Undocumented immigrant children\" width=\"771\" height=\"517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_3-771x517.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_3-336x225.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_3-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_3-1170x784.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_3.jpg 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">U.S. Customs and Border Protection<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Detained immigrant children like these girls often end up in the custody of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and at one of its shelters that are run by private contractors.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>When he asked the man, who was 46, what he was doing, the man left. But he returned two more times, rubbing the teen\u2019s penis through his clothing and then trying to reach under his boxers. \u201cI know what you want, I can give you anything you need,\u201d said the worker, who was later convicted of molestation.<\/p>\n<p>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. \u201cYou have it very big,\u201d the man said, referring to the teen\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>And in January of this year, a security guard at the shelter found notes in a minor\u2019s jacket that suggested an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/immigrant-youth-shelters-sexual-abuse-fights-missing-children\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ProPublica<\/a>, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom.\u00a0Sign up for their\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.propublica.org\/forms\/newsletter_daily_email\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Pulled from police reports, incidents like these at Southwest Key\u2019s Tucson shelter provide a snapshot of what has largely been kept from the public as well as members of Congress \u2014 a view, uncolored by politics, of troubling incidents inside the facilities housing immigrant children.<\/p>\n<p>Using state public records laws, ProPublica has obtained police reports and call logs concerning more than 70 of the approximately 100 immigrant youth shelters run by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department\u2019s Office of Refugee Resettlement. While not a comprehensive assessment of the conditions at these shelters, the records challenge the Trump administration\u2019s assertion that the shelters are safe havens for children. The reports document hundreds of allegations of sexual offenses, fights and missing children.<\/p>\n<p>The recently discontinued practice of separating children from their parents has thrust the youth shelters into the national spotlight. But, with little public scrutiny, they have long cared for thousands of immigrant children, most of them teenagers, although last year 17 percent were under 13. On any given day, the shelters in 17 states across the country house around 10,000 adolescents.<\/p>\n<p>The more than 1,000 pages of police reports and logs detail incidents dating back to the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America in 2014 during the Obama administration. But immigrant advocates, psychologists and officials who formerly oversaw the shelters say the Trump administration\u2019s harsh new policies have only increased pressures on the facilities, which often are hard-pressed to provide adequate staffing for kids who suffer from untold traumas and who now exist in a legal limbo that could shape the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re a predator, it\u2019s a gold mine,\u201d said Lisa Fortuna, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at Boston Medical Center.\u00a0\u201cYou have full access and then you have kids that have already had this history of being victimized.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Southwest Key wouldn\u2019t discuss specific incidents, but said in a statement that the company has a strict policy on abuse and neglect and takes every allegation seriously. HHS declined ProPublica\u2019s requests to interview the refugee resettlement program\u2019s director, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.acf.hhs.gov\/about\/leadership\/scott-lloyd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scott Lloyd<\/a>. The agency released a statement saying it \u201ctreats its responsibility for each child with the utmost care\u201d and has a \u201czero-tolerance policy for all forms of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior\u201d at the shelters.<\/p>\n<p>But the reports collected by ProPublica so far show that in the past five years, police have responded to at least 125 calls reporting sex offenses at shelters that primarily serve immigrant children. That number doesn\u2019t include another 200 such calls from more than a dozen shelters that also care for at-risk youth residing in the U.S. Call records for those facilities don\u2019t distinguish which reports related to unaccompanied immigrants and which to other youth housed on the property.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Psychologists who\u2019ve worked with immigrant youth said the records likely undercount the problems because many kids might not report abuse for fear of affecting their immigration cases.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unclear whether any of the children mentioned as victims in the reports were separated from their parents at the border, but the reports include several children as young as 6 years old. The government faced a court deadline Thursday to reunite the nearly 3,000 children who were separated from their parents. But the administration told the court that more than 700 of those children remain in shelters or foster care because their parents have already been deported or have been deemed ineligible for reunification for various reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Not all the reports reveal abuse. The shelters are required to report any sexual allegation to the police and many reports detail minor incidents and horseplay not uncommon in American schools. For example, the BCFS International Children\u2019s Shelter in Harlingen, Texas, called the police in February after one minor entered another\u2019s room and rubbed a small styrofoam ball on the juvenile\u2019s buttocks.<\/p>\n<p>And, once secure in the shelters, some immigrant children report assaults that occurred not at the shelters, but in their home countries. Last November, a 14-year-old girl staying in a shelter in Irvington, New York, told staff she had been raped in Honduras by a man who was now in immigration custody.<\/p>\n<p>But the reports show that the allegations of staff abuse and inappropriate relationships that occurred in Tucson aren\u2019t isolated. In February, a 24-year-old youth care worker at KidsPeace in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was placed on administrative leave after kissing a teenage boy in the laundry room. Just over a year earlier, a 21-year-old staff member there was accused of kissing a 16-year-old girl in the hallway. The BCFS shelter in Harlingen was written up by state regulators in 2017 after a staff member flew to New York to visit a former resident. And at a Southwest Key shelter outside San Diego, reports show, a female employee who had been accused of kissing a juvenile quit after being confronted with information that the teenager had the woman\u2019s Snapchat account written on a piece of paper.<\/p>\n<p>KidsPeace wouldn\u2019t discuss personnel matters but said \u201cthe safety and well-being of our young clients are our top priority.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>BCFS said the staff member was terminated for violating agency policy and that it has &#8220;very strict and clear boundaries for our staff.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The reports also reveal dozens of incidents of unwanted groping and indecent exposure among children and teenagers at the facilities. Some kids fleeing threats and violence in their home countries arrived in the United States only to be placed in shelters where they faced similar dangers. In March, a 15-year-old boy at the Southwest Key shelter in Tucson reported that his roommate lifted up his legs as he was trying to go to sleep, made thrusting motions and said, \u201cI\u2019m going rape you.\u201d And in late 2016, a 15-year-old at KidsPeace told police that another boy there had been forcing him to have oral sex. After an investigation, one teen was transferred to a more secure facility. (KidsPeace said it wouldn\u2019t discuss specific information about kids in its care.)<\/p>\n<p>While it\u2019s difficult to get a complete count, the police reports show that children go missing or run away from the shelters roughly once a week. Several shelters, including Southwest Key&#8217;s Tucson facility, have seen a significant increase in missing person and runaway calls since the start of 2018. St. PJ\u2019s Children\u2019s Home in San Antonio, which primarily cares for immigrant children, has had 26 such calls in the first half of the year, records show, compared to 14 for all of last year and nine for 2016.<\/p>\n<p>St. PJ\u2019s Children\u2019s Home responded after publication and said its spike in runaways involves U.S. children, not immigrant youth.<\/p>\n<p>The police reports also raise questions about how Southwest Key, the largest operator of immigrant shelters, handles such incidents. In the molestation case involving the 46-year-old staffer, police had obtained edited surveillance footage but later sought a complete, unedited version. Southwest Key, however, had taped over the footage. And in another case, police noted that Southwest Key refused to give officers records from an internal investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Southwest Key CEO Juan S\u00e1nchez declined an interview. The Texas-based nonprofit has received more than $1.3 billion in federal grants and contracts in the past five years for the shelters and other services. Jeff Eller, a spokesman, said, \u201cWe cooperate with all investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Government officials and advocates say most immigrant youth shelters were never intended to house children long-term. But in recent weeks, the average length of stay has climbed to 57 days from 34 days just two years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Maria Cancian, deputy assistant secretary for policy at HHS\u2019s Administration for Children and Families from 2015 to 2016, said typically the shelters only housed immigrant kids for the \u201choneymoon period\u201d when they first arrived in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe kids didn\u2019t have a chance to get bored and ornery,\u201d she said. \u201cThe longer kids are there, the more trouble you\u2019re going to have, and the more opportunities there are for relationships to evolve in ways that are more challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cancian, who served under President Obama, said the shelters were well run when she was there. \u201cBut if you\u2019re serving 65,000 children in a year,\u201d she said, \u201cthere are going to be some bad incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The network of federally funded shelters sprang up after HHS took over the responsibility of caring for unaccompanied children arriving at the border in 2003. For most of their existence, the shelters received little attention, serving fewer than 8,000 children a year. But in 2014, that number surged to nearly 60,000 as a flood of teenagers fleeing gang violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador sought asylum in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>The shelters \u2014 whose operators have been paid about $4 billion over the past five years \u2014 were designed as temporary way stations, where new arrivals could get acclimated while staffers tried to locate family members who could care for them while their immigration cases wound through the courts.<\/p>\n<p>There are now approximately <a href=\"https:\/\/projects.propublica.org\/graphics\/migrant-shelters-near-you\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">100 shelters<\/a> scattered from Seattle to suburban New York, but concentrated in Texas and Arizona. They range from old motels to stand-alone homes, from a converted Walmart to a former estate set amid mansions, where on a recent day a deer could be seen prancing through the leafy grounds.<\/p>\n<p>The children arrive with a host of needs, said Nayeli Chavez-Due\u00f1as, a clinical psychologist who helped develop shelter guidelines on behalf of the National Latina\/o Psychological Association.<\/p>\n<p>Many children have experienced traumatic events in their home countries, are desperate for stability after the long journey, and have little understanding of American laws \u2014 all things that make them particularly vulnerable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen a perpetrator is trying to pick a victim they\u2019re picking somebody that they think is less likely to report the abuse,\u201d Chavez-Due\u00f1as said. \u201cChildren and youth that are coming from outside of the country, that have no legal status here, that don\u2019t speak English, that don\u2019t have access to lawyers or people who can protect them \u2014 they already might think they\u2019re not going to be believed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the back of their minds, she said, is the fear that speaking up could ultimately hurt their immigration case.<\/p>\n<p>The worker who was convicted of molesting the boy in Tucson isn\u2019t the only shelter employee to face criminal charges. Last year, according to court records, a youth care worker at a Homestead, Florida, shelter was sentenced to 10 years in prison after she sent nude photos of herself to a 15-year-old boy who had recently left the shelter and asked him for sex. In 2012, a case manager at a Fullerton, California, shelter was convicted of molesting several teenage boys when they went into his office for regular calls with family, court records show.<\/p>\n<p>The shelters must complete background checks complying with both federal standards and state licensing requirements. They are overseen by an overlapping system of regulators that ostensibly provides a lot of enforcement tools. When incidents occur, shelters are required to alert the police and the ORR. They may also have to notify state agencies that license child-care facilities.<\/p>\n<p>Bob Carey, who was director of ORR from 2015 to 2017, said each week he read through a stack of significant incident reports submitted by the shelters, summarizing everything from behavior problems to allegations of sex between staff and minors. Looking at them over several years, he said, there weren\u2019t many serious incidents that stood out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I was there, the overwhelming majority of what was reported was one kid slapping the butt of another kid in the cafeteria line,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you want to make sure that when the more serious incident does happen, that people know what do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When there were serious problems, he said, the agency would initiate an investigation that could result in \u201ccorrective actions,\u201d ranging from increased monitoring to the termination of the grant. Field staff assigned to the regions where the shelters are located can make unannounced visits day or night. In Texas, licensing officials can also issue fines, order shelters to make changes and ultimately revoke a shelter\u2019s operating license. But in practice, the harshest tools have rarely been used.<\/p>\n<p>Monitoring the shelters can be extremely difficult as the number of unaccompanied children can fluctuate wildly from year to year.<\/p>\n<p>The rise and fall means the shelters are in a constant state of flux, making it difficult to retain and train staff. Last spring, Southwest Key laid off almost 1,000 employees \u2014 only to have to ramp up several months later. Current and former employees <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/southwest-key-casa-padre-staff-immigrant-kids\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">describe<\/a> a stressful environment where overstretched and underpaid care workers do the best they can with little training to handle kids in crisis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to imagine how difficult it is to quickly ramp up appropriate care for children,\u201d Cancian said. \u201cThe more people you have to bring in fast and the less experienced your staff, the more challenges there are to maintain standards.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In response to the influx in 2014, Carey and other officials developed a plan to restructure the ORR to improve oversight of the unaccompanied minor program by increasing staff and supervision, shifting field employees to regions where new shelters had popped up and trying to resolve longstanding data problems. The plan began to take shape at the end of 2016.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s unclear what happened when the Trump administration took over and initiated a hiring freeze. An HHS spokeswoman would only say that the plan \u201cwas never implemented by the last administration\u201d and that \u201ctoday, operations are constantly reviewed and improved on an ongoing basis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Several police reports obtained by ProPublica raise questions about how serious incidents were handled by shelters.<\/p>\n<p>In one case in Tucson in 2015, two female employees told managers that a maintenance supervisor had groped them, tried to pull one of them into a room, and then made a sexual gesture with a broom handle. When no action was taken, an assistant shift leader notified the police.<\/p>\n<p>The employees told police that the assistant program director said he had lost one of women\u2019s statements while another manager told them to \u201cdrop it and leave it alone.\u201d The assistant director told police that the company held a sexual harassment class and suspended the maintenance supervisor while it investigated, but couldn\u2019t prove or disprove the allegations because the supervisor denied them. When a police detective asked for copies of the employees\u2019 statements, police records say, a lawyer for Southwest Key refused to provide them.<\/p>\n<p>According to the police report, the employees said they feared that if the maintenance supervisor was \u201cdoing this to female employees, who\u2019s to say he\u2019s not doing this or worse to the several hundred female refugees staying at the center.\u201d The man had full access to the building, they told police, and the minors might be hesitant to speak up.<\/p>\n<p>The reports also show that when inappropriate touching or abuse occurred among residents at the Tucson shelter, the staff and police often left it up to minor victims to decide whether to file charges against other children.<\/p>\n<p>The process for reporting and investigating incidents was inconsistent at other shelters as well.<\/p>\n<p>A former employee at KidsPeace in Pennsylvania said that staff members frequently attended police interviews of residents who reported misconduct, potentially creating a conflict of interest. KidsPeace spokesman Bob Martin said the agency\u2019s interactions with police and other governmental entities are \u201cscrupulously conducted\u201d to ensure that neither kids\u2019 \u201cpersonal well-being nor their legal rights are put at risk while they are in our care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At a Southwest Key shelter in Conroe, Texas, in May, a boy told a youth care worker that his mental health counselor brushed his shoulders, rubbed his arm and caressed his face while continually peeking out of the office\u2019s blinds \u201cas if he was checking to see if someone was coming.\u201d The counselor began to unbuckle his own pants, but stopped, the police report said.<\/p>\n<p>The boy later repeated the story to a state child welfare worker. The counselor was suspended during the investigation. But a more formal forensic interview didn\u2019t take place until six days after the incident.<\/p>\n<p>At that point, the police report said, the boy \u201cmade no outcry regarding any criminal offense\u201d and the case was closed.<\/p>\n<p>Waiting six days for a forensic interview is not on its face unusual, said David Palmiter, a psychology professor at Marywood University who has conducted forensic interviews of abused children. But he noted that the interview should be done sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything from legitimate confusion to some calculation of what the consequences could be or whether they would please or hurt the adults around them could impact the child,\u201d he said. \u201cThere could be any number of reasons why the story changes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A large part of the current pressure on the shelters stems from a series of changes made by the Trump administration in how it handles unaccompanied minors, immigrant advocates say.<\/p>\n<p>As part of an information-sharing agreement, the ORR is now required to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement with potential sponsors\u2019 names, dates of birth, addresses and fingerprints so that ICE can pull criminal and immigration history information on the sponsor, usually a family member, and all adult members of the sponsor\u2019s household.<\/p>\n<p>Officials say the vetting is being done to protect children. In one case a few years ago, the agency unintentionally <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/frontline\/article\/inside-the-hidden-reality-of-labor-trafficking-in-america\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">turned<\/a> teenagers over to a smuggling network that forced them to work on an egg farm to pay off their debts.<\/p>\n<p>But immigrant advocates say the policy is deterring family members who are often undocumented from coming forward, leaving children to languish in shelters where they may become increasingly desperate.<\/p>\n<p>The police reports detail repeated calls about runaways.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be that difficult for kids to run away from these facilities if they really wanted to,\u201d said Carey, the former ORR director. \u201cBut they were expecting to be pretty quickly reunited with a parent or sponsor. That didn\u2019t create a big incentive for them to try to run away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As the lengths of stay increase with sponsors less likely to come forward, he said, \u201cthat might conceivably create an incentive to voluntarily depart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For many of the teens, who may have already run away from gangs in their home countries, as well as predators along the route and the Border Patrol, bolting from the shelters is unsurprising.<\/p>\n<p>In February, a recent arrival at Southwest Key\u2019s Tucson shelter, whom staff and ICE believed was older than he claimed, jumped off a second-floor balcony into the parking lot, climbed a light pole and bounded over the fence.<\/p>\n<p>At the Lincoln Hall Boys\u2019 Haven in the New York suburbs, four boys disappeared in 2016 after being taken to a clinic for X-rays and other medical treatment. Last summer, two boys who were awaiting deportation at the Southwest Key shelter in Conroe, Texas, took off running as a large group of students was being escorted to a class.<\/p>\n<p>According to ORR\u2019s policy guide, agency staff are supposed to assess whether a child is an \u201cescape risk\u201d in deciding whether to place him or her in a more secure setting.<\/p>\n<p>But in most facilities, the kids can\u2019t be forcibly restrained from leaving.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are not a detention center,\u201d said Eller, the Southwest Key spokesman. \u201cIf a child leaves the property, we cannot force them to stay, but we talk to them and we work with law enforcement to ensure their continued safety.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Court records describe the Honduran teen by the initials M.A.C. He\u2019d crossed the border in McAllen, Texas, and was taken to the Southwest Key facility in Tucson, where he was told caseworkers would help reunite him with his father in South Carolina. He\u2019d been in the U.S. just five days and the next day was his 16th birthday.<\/p>\n<p>In the dim morning hours that Saturday, a man M.A.C. knew only as Oscar walked into his room, wearing a Southwest Key T-shirt that read \u201cI Love My Job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oscar Trujillo, 46, was one of the first people M.A.C. met when he arrived at the facility on Friday, April 10, 2015. He viewed Oscar as an adult he could trust.<\/p>\n<p>Standing at the boy\u2019s bedside, Trujillo lifted M.A.C.\u2019s blanket and began tickling him on the chest and stomach, according to transcripts of his 2017 trial. The boy testified that he was confused, but he didn\u2019t shout or pull away because he saw Trujillo as a grownup and a teacher.<\/p>\n<p>M.A.C. didn\u2019t know that Trujillo had already violated one of Southwest Key\u2019s major rules by entering the child\u2019s room alone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is something that is instilled in our minds day one,\u201d said Jeff Cotton, a former Southwest Key employee who was the shift supervisor the day Trujillo entered the boy\u2019s room. \u201cDo not be alone with these kids because there could be an instance where you are accused and if you are accused, you want to have a witness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trujillo left the boy\u2019s room, but returned a short time later and lifted the child\u2019s blanket again. He resumed the tickling, but this time he also rubbed M.A.C.\u2019s penis through his clothing, court records show. The boy moved Trujillo\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know what you want, I can give you anything you need,\u201d Trujillo told the boy, according to police records.<\/p>\n<p>Trujillo left the room, and again returned a short time later. Surveillance cameras caught Trujillo entering and exiting M.A.C.\u2019s room alone each time. On his third trip into the boy\u2019s room, Trujillo attempted to lift the child\u2019s boxers and slip his hand in the boy\u2019s underwear, according to trial records.<\/p>\n<p>This time M.A.C. pulled away. Trujillo asked the child not to tell anyone or else his job could be at risk, the records show. The boy, feeling violated and confused, got dressed and stood in line at the cafeteria.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt uncomfortable over everything that had happened,\u201d M.A.C. told a jury last year. \u201cI knew it was something that shouldn\u2019t be happening in a place like that, and I knew that I needed to say something to someone about that, because it was something that was serious. So I asked to speak to my counselor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After M.A.C. was interviewed by police and a psychologist, Trujillo was arrested and never returned to the Southwest Key facility.<\/p>\n<p>Trujillo could not be reached for this story, but in court he testified that he went in and out of M.A.C.\u2019s room to give him toiletries and to teach him how to make his bed. \u00a0Trujillo\u2019s attorneys also claimed that M.A.C. concocted the abuse claim in order to become a candidate for a U-Visa, which allows immigrants who are victims of crimes to remain in the country.<\/p>\n<p>The jury wasn\u2019t convinced. Trujillo was convicted of one count of molestation and sentenced to three years of probation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to imagine that children and youth that are coming from other countries are arriving here and trying to play the system and apply for things that even people that have been here for years don\u2019t know about,\u201d said Chavez-Due\u00f1as, the clinical psychologist, who is also an associate professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.<\/p>\n<p>Arthur Evans, CEO of the American Psychological Association, said the problems revealed in the police and court records are to be expected given the \u201cvery significant needs\u201d of the children and the staff\u2019s lack of specialized training. His organization has offered its membership\u2019s expertise to assist the facilities.<\/p>\n<p>With such a mismatch in needs and capacity, he said, \u201cYou\u2019re more likely to have kids running away. You\u2019re more likely to have incidents of sexual and physical abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such a result, Evans said, is \u201cnot surprising.\u201d<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/pixel.propublica.org\/pixel.js\" async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ProPublica obtained police reports and call logs from more than two-thirds of the shelters housing immigrant children. Here\u2019s what they show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":593761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,234,142],"class_list":["post-608043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-children","tag-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}