Latino charity faces a 'dilemma' on housing separated children
By Annie Linskey GLOBE STAFF JUNE 16, 2018
WASHINGTON The outrage generated by President Trumpsforced separations of immigrant children from their parents at the Mexican border would seem to leave little room for middle ground. Advocates including Latino groups, Catholic bishops, the United Nations, and members of Congress are condemning the practice as inhumane.
But one major Latino charity is trying to occupy a gray area in the midst of the firestorm, with limited success at escaping controversy: Texas-based Southwest Key Programs Inc., a pillar of the Hispanic nonprofit world with deep respect across the country.
It now finds itself accused of complicity in Trumps separations policy, raising broader questions about how much moral responsibility is borne by the thousands of people who are working to carry out that policy, even when the job includes taking care of the children themselves.
The $240 million-a-year Southwest Key organization has big contracts with the government to house immigrant minors in its two dozen low-security shelters in Texas, Arizona, and California, a population that in recent weeks has exploded with infants and children removed from their parents.
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