In San Diego, California, a federal judge will hold a hearing today on whether to delay Tuesday’s deadline that mandated the reunification of all children under the age of 5 whom the Trump administration separated from their parents at the border. Under court order, Justice Department released the names of more than a hundred children under 5 who were separated from their parents. The Trump administration is claiming it needs more time to match children with their parents, including at least 19 parents the Trump administration has deported already. The American Civil Liberties Union says less than half the separated children under the age of 5 will be reunited by Tuesday. According to Judge Dana Sabraw’s ruling, all separated children must be reunited with their parents by July 26. Last week, HHS Secretary Alex Azar told reporters there are nearly 3,000 separated children in government custody, a figure almost a thousand children more than the 2,047 his department released over a week ago.
Well, for more on the unfolding crisis of separated families, we turn to a new investigation by Reveal exposing how a major U.S. military and CIA contractor has been detaining dozens of migrant children inside a vacant Phoenix office building with dark windows, no kitchen and only a few toilets. The building was leased in March by MVM, a military contractor Reveal reports has received nearly $250 million in contracts to transport immigrant children since 2014. One local resident filmed children in sweatsuits being led into the building, with one so young that they had to be carried. After Reveal published its story Friday, policymakers spoke out against the facility, and donations of toys were left out front in a gift bag with the words “stay strong” along with a large dollhouse.
Aura Bogado talking:
A few weeks ago, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said that the children who were being taken from their parents at the border would be placed in “foster care or whatever.” Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting has been laser-focused on what that “whatever” means. Although we don’t know for a fact that these children were indeed separated from their parents at the border, we believe that may be the case because, as you mentioned, some of the children are so young that they don’t look like they’re old enough to walk. I know, from my many years as an immigration reporter, that children who do cross the desert or who do turn themselves in at a port of entry tend to be teenagers, sometimes preteens. We’ve never seen toddlers who are unaccompanied. And so, for that reason, we believe that these children may have been separated from their parents. And now we have a better idea of what that “whatever” may mean.
In this case, a contractor, a private contractor with heavy ties to the CIA—in fact, it was founded by ex-CIA secret agents—had an office in which neighbors described dozens of children going in over the span of several weeks and never leaving until three weeks later. We were able to obtain video of 32 of those children entering that facility. And this is in an unmarked, unmapped, unlicensed, largely vacant office building right there in Phoenix.
Lianna Dunlap: “A lot of times I would just stare out my window, waiting to see something, and—or late at night, I would go out in my backyard and just look at that window, waiting to see if I could hear anything or see any lights. It’s just like, if there are kids in there and they have those windows blocked off, they’re not even seeing sunlight. And how long have they had them in there? There’s been times where I drive by and I just start crying, because, you know, it’s right behind my house, and I don’t know—and I think that’s the worst part, is not knowing what’s actually going on in there, and just hoping that they’re OK.”
I was just texting with Lianna a few minutes before this segment. You know, Lianna was concerned the first time that she saw this happen. I saw texts that she exchanged with her husband on the 4th of June, and she said, “Something very weird is going on. I think the children are being trafficked.” She subsequently takes video. She confronted workers. She talked to her friends about it. She called the police, because one of the workers sort of casually said, like, “Well, if you have a problem with it, call the police.” And so she did so. We spoke with the Phoenix Police Department, who did confirm that they responded to a call. However, when they found out that this was an ICE contractor that was involved, they apparently didn’t continue, or maybe even start, an investigation.
So Lianna had turned to local media and then turned to us, I think, from—really, from a moment of frustration and wanting to really know what happened with these children, what’s going on here. Our team of investigators got on the story right away. I was on the next flight to Phoenix the following morning, and I went straight from the airport to Lianna’s house. And that office is indeed right in front of her house. And then, back at the office, we had our great team of researchers and reporters really start digging into this property, the history of its property.
We found that in March, MVM, this private contractor, signed a 5-year lease. This is one month before Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces “zero[-tolerance]” policy. In June, when we start hearing reports of separated—of children being separated at the border, that’s when Lianna and her neighbors first started seeing children. They didn’t know—they told me that they had no idea that these could have been immigrant children. They thought maybe these were just children who were being trafficked for some kind of work and who were being abused. And they then see the reports of immigrant children. You know, President Trump then cancels his own policy of separating families at the border on the 20th of June. Two days later is when neighbors report seeing all of those vanloads of children leaving. Some neighbors estimate that it was around 40 children who left that facility on the 22nd of June. Others—Lianna tells me that it was as many as 80 kids who were in there.
MVM, when we first contacted them, they stated what you just read: “We’re not in the business of providing shelter or any kind of housing for children at all whatsoever.” As it became more clear to them that we had a lot of evidence that many children were being detained for some period of time in this office building, they said, “Well, this is a temporary holding place.” That’s the term that MVM has used to describe it, a “temporary holding place.”
ICE didn’t respond immediately. I believe any reporter who works on immigration sort of takes that as a given: ICE responds when it wants to respond and when it feels a need to respond. They eventually did respond, Jennifer Elzea then telling me that, under its contract, this private contractor, MVM, is allowed to have children in an office setting used as a waiting area. But, you know, when you think about, a waiting area tends to be—in my experience, it has always been an area in which I wait, immediately before I speak with perhaps a DMV worker or perhaps before I immediately board my flight. A waiting area doesn’t tend to be a way station, a detention area. As you said, some people have described this as a black site. And I think that speaks to the unmarked, unlicensed nature of this office building. This is a plain office building.
We didn’t publish the medication schedule, because there is some, what we believe to be, private information about at least one of the children who was being held there, likely a lot more. We see some names on there. And there is a medication schedule. It has a partial A number. That’s an identifier that ICE and other immigration authorities use to track undocumented immigrants through its system. And it has a name, and it says, “Medication at 0900 hours”—I’m not sure how to say that in military time. That kind of medication schedule, that’s interesting, because as any of us who ever take medication on doctor’s orders know, that we need to take it, you know, once daily, twice daily. That’s something that indicates that perhaps children were there longer than just a few hours.
And even if children were only there for a few hours, the state of Arizona, they’re the ones who determine whether or not a place is a child care facility. The way that we described what we understood to be happening there to an Arizona Department of Health spokesperson, he said, well, he’s not familiar with this particular case. What we described would mean that it’s a child care center, and it’s not licensed for that. There hasn’t even been an application put in for that.
There has been a lot of outrage on the part of lawmakers, on the part of policymakers, on the part of the community. There will be a press conference today directly in front of that office, and a lot of lawmakers have issued statements. We are working with a reporter in Phoenix who is going to bring us more about the fallout from our story.
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Aura Bogado
immigration reporter for Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting.
— source democracynow.org