The Justice Department plans to drop a Biden-era lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by employees of a company that houses thousands of unaccompanied migrant children and has received billions of dollars in federal grants to operate the facilities.
The decision follows a push by well-known Supreme Court litigator Lisa Blatt, a Williams & Connolly partner representing Southwest Key Programs, to get the Trump Justice Department to dismiss the matter. Blatt said it could hobble the administration’s goal of cracking down on illegal immigration, according to a Feb. 11 email to the Justice Department viewed by Bloomberg Law.
Suing Southwest Key under a federal civil rights law and seeking money damages for the children would, if successful, offer sweeping protections to federal detainees and “actually incentivize illegal crossings at the southern border,” Blatt wrote in the email to officials including Associate Deputy Attorney General Ketan Bhirud.
Government lawyers are expected to file a dismissal notice in the civil case in a Texas federal court against Southwest Key, which is the US’s largest private housing provider for children who enter the country without parents or guardians, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Johnathan Smith, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said a dismissal raises concerns about politicization of the department’s enforcement of civil rights laws.
“This case is about children being raped and abused,” Smith said. “This shouldn’t be the type of case where politics dictate how the department approaches that.”
Blatt as well as representatives for the Justice Department and Southwest Key didn’t return requests for comment Sunday.
Pressing Justice
Blatt’s email, coming just weeks after Donald Trump returned to the White House, is the latest example of how defense counsel are trying to leverage changes within the Justice Department for their clients’ benefit.
Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi have curbed white-collar crime initiatives, ramped up immigration enforcement, and ordered prosecutors to pull Biden-era matters in such areas as public corruption.
The department has also ordered the civil rights division, which filed the Southwest Key suit, to dismiss cases challenging the hiring practices of some local firefighter and police departments.
Blatt is a prominent appellate litigator at the Supreme Court, where she’s argued the most cases of any woman. Her past clients at the high court have included Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Starbucks Corp., and Booking.com.
The Justice Department alleged in July 2024 that Southwest Key employees sexually abused and harassed children between the ages of 5 and 17 at its shelters over an eight-year span. The company is also accused of failing to properly respond and prevent the abuse in violation of the Fair Housing Act, which bars discrimination in housing.
At least two former Southwest Key employees have also been separately convicted in state and federal courts of sexually abusing migrant children at the facilities.
Southwest Key denies the DOJ’s claims and in September 2024 asked a judge in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas to toss the case.
The Fair Housing Act doesn’t apply to shelter care facilities for unaccompanied minors in legal custody, the company has argued. The company also cited its ongoing contracts with the Department of Health and Human Services as support for its compliance with federal laws.
HHS didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The Justice Department has previously taken the position in court that the shelters are covered by the housing discrimination law, in a separate case during the Obama administration involving Southwest Key.
The judge overseeing the matter, Alan Albright, last month scheduled a March 14 hearing on Southwest Key’s motion to dismiss the case.
‘Open Season’
Former Justice Department officials, who were briefed on the developments by Bloomberg Law, raised concerns that the dismissal could send a poor message in future cases of misconduct.
These types of Justice Department cases aim to deter organizations from committing this conduct in the future, said Smith, who is now at the National Center for Youth Law.
“I worry that if the signal from the Trump administration is that we’re dismissing these cases, it makes it seem like it’s open season for abusers and harassers,” Smith said.
Mikael Rojas, former senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the decision would set a “really troubling message” to other immigration facilities that they “won’t necessarily be held accountable, even for the most grotesque abuses of children.”
“The United States is turning its back on children who are being abused in our country, and it’s disgusting,” Rojas said.
Southwest Key
Southwest Key receives grant funding from the HHS refugee office, which takes custody of unaccompanied migrant children after they enter the US until they can be placed with family members or other sponsors.
The company, which received over $3 billion in funding from HHS from 2015 to 2023, operated 29 shelters that could accommodate 6,350 children in Texas, Arizona, and California, according to the DOJ lawsuit.
The Justice Department alleged multiple employees sexually assaulted, solicited explicit photographs from, and made unwelcome advances to children. They also threatened children against reporting the abuse, the suit said.
“Despite knowledge of these severe and pervasive harms, Southwest Key failed to take appropriate action to protect the children in its care,” the lawsuit said, citing more than 100 reports from children and employees.
The department originally asked the court to award monetary damages to the abuse victims. Dismissal of the case would prevent victims from receiving that requested compensation.
The case is United States v. Southwest Key Programs, Inc. , W.D. Tex., No. 1:24-cv-00798.
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