Briefs

Southwest Key gets $458M to house migrant children
Juan Sanchez grew up along the Mexican border in a two-bedroom house so
crowded with children that he didn’t have a bed. But he fought his way to another
life. He earned three degrees, including a doctorate in education from Harvard,
before starting a nonprofit in his Texas hometown.
Mr. Sanchez has built an empire on the back of a crisis. His organization,
Southwest Key Programs, now houses more migrant children than any other in
the nation. Casting himself as a social-justice warrior, he calls himself El
Presidente, a title inscribed outside his office and on the government contracts
that helped make him rich.
The federal government’s fight against illegal immigration has become a booming
business for a non-profit housing at metro-Phoenix and Tucson shelters migrant
children separated from their parents.
Texas-based Southwest Key Programs was paid at least $458 million in fiscal
2018 to house unaccompanied children, as President Donald Trump’s
administration has enforced its “zero-tolerance” policy of prosecuting all who
cross the border illegally.
Southwest Key, which issued a statement last Wednesday denouncing family
separations, houses about 1,600 kids at 26 shelters in Arizona, California and
Texas.
Eight of its Arizona shelters house migrant children, according to the non-profit,
primarily from Guatemala.
Government records show the current federal payout to Southwest Key is more
than double what it was in fiscal year 2016, the last year of President Barack
Obama’s administration.
Southwest Key is in the last year of a three-year contract worth $990 million.
However, the amount increases if there is a greater need to house immigrant
children.
Southwest Key says its funding primarily comes from government contracts for
youth services.
The Economic Research Institute, a California-based organization that tracks
compensation, found most non-profits with chief executives making more than $1
million are health-care organizations or private colleges and universities, not
social service providers.
For the complete article published by the New York Times go to
www.nytimes.com / He’s built an empire, with detained migrant children as the
bricks.
Mexican President sworn in with vow to transform Mexico
Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador took the reins of governance in Mexico City last
Saturday, starting his six-year term with a promise to end the corruption, poverty
and extreme violence that have plagued the country for more than a decade.
The 65-year old Lopez Obrador, also known as AMLO, has become the most
left-wing president Mexico has had in its modern history — and assuming office
at a time of growing frustration among Mexicans and high expectations for
change.
Lopez Obrador won a resounding electoral victory in July on a nationalist
platform that promised to fight rampant corruption, increase benefits for the
needy, build state-owned oil refineries and curb the violence that led to a record
25,000 murders last year.
Many Mexicans have high expectations for Lopez Obrador, who is limited to one
six-year term, with no shot at re-election. A recent poll by the newspaper El
Financiero indicated he has a 66 percent approval rating, while outgoing
President Enrique Peña Nieto has only 26 percent.
Lopez Obrador hopes to come to a quick agreement with the Trump
administration on a plan to tackle the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. On
Sunday, several members of his new cabinet are heading to Washington for talks
with Nielsen and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Washington Post
reported.