What A Real Immigration Kids Shelter Looks Like - Not Cages!

Migrant children held in 'tender age' shelters after being separated from parents. This shelter, Casa Padre, in Brownsville, Texas which used to be a Walmart, is operated by Southwest Key, a firm that runs more than a dozen shelters in Texas housing unaccompanied immigrant children. “We take great care of kids,” said Juan Sanchez, the president and CEP of Southwest Key. “Our goal is to reunify these children with their families.”

Nearly 1,500 kids spread across the sprawling floor-plan of a remodeled Walmart dined on chicken, mashed potatoes, fruit and vegetables, even as a movie theater at the opposite end of the building showed the Walt Disney movie "Moana" in Spanish.

Officials at the boys-only facility say the majority of these children were traveling alone and were not separated from parents at the border. The kids are 10-17 and most come from Central America, although there were a few from India and China.

Casa Padre and other shelters have drawn interest from congressional leaders and immigrant advocates as hundreds of children have been separated from their parents along the U.S.-Mexico border under President Donald Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy.

The officials at Casa Padre declined to comment on that policy.

"What we are about, and we do it very well, is we take care of kids," Sanchez said.

When a child arrives at the Brownsville shelter, he or she receives a healthcare screening and meets with a case worker, who contacts parents and a potential sponsor in the United States, ideally a family member.

Children are placed with relatives or put into a federal foster care system, a process that is overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

New arrivals are kept apart from the general population for a period of 48 hours until their medical exams are completed.

Southwest Key maintains a ratio of one case manager for every eight kids, and one clinician for every 12 kids. There are also 48 medical staff and three on-call physicians, Sanchez said. Overall, the facility has 1,267 employees.

The 250,000 square-foot building has classrooms where kids take six hours of instruction Monday through Friday. Currently they are learning about the U.S. branches of government.

The children are released two hours per day for outdoor activity, and taken on excursions around Brownsville. Recreation rooms offer billiards and video games, and colorful murals of U.S. presidents adorn the walls.

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