In other news... for some immigrant children the shelters are just as unsafe as the outside....
Sad news for the children.... but good to see this shelter worker arrested. Let's hope for a quick conviction and a lengthy sentence.
Another Southwest Key employee was arrested for sex abuse at shelter, court documents show
https://www.azcentral.com/story/new...molesting-eight-teens-mesa-shelter/892084002/
A Southwest Key employee accused of molesting eight teenage boys at a migrant shelter in Mesa is scheduled to go on trial this month, according to court documents.
Levian Pacheco, a youth care worker at the Mesa facility, is alleged to have abused two of the teens by performing oral sex on them, and attempting to force one of them to have anal sex, according to court documents. He's also accused of touching six others in the genital area over their clothing. The boys ranged in age from 15 to 17.
When Pacheco, 25, was arrested he told police he had HIV, court documents show.
This is the third known arrest of a staff member at an Arizona migrant shelter related to allegations of molesting children.
An employee of a Southwest Key facility in Phoenix,
Fernando Magaz Negrete, 32, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of molesting a 14-year-old girl in July. He is accused of kissing the girl multiple times and touching her breasts and crotch over her clothes in the bedroom she shared with two other minors at the facility.
An employee at Southwest Key's Tucson facility was convicted of sex abuse in connection with a 2015 incident.
The Texas-based nonprofit houses juveniles who illegally entered the country by themselves and, more recently, children who were separated from their families after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Pacheco's alleged abuse predates the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy, which led to the family separations.
Conditions at migrant shelters have come under scrutiny amid public uproar over the federal government's separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents and guardians.
Southwest Key spokesman Jeff Eller declined to comment on the Pacheco case.
He said in a statement that children are told when they arrive at their shelters that they have a right to not be abused. The children can call police, the Department of Child Safety, or Health and Human Service's Office of Refugee Resettlement at any time, he said.
(much more at above url)