Immigrant Youth Shelters: "If You're a Predator, It's a Gold Mine" (ProPublica report)

https://www.propublica.org/article/immigrant-youth-shelters-sexual-abuse-fights-missing-children?utm_campaign=sprout&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=1532709136

Update, July 27, 2018: This story has been updated to include responses from St. PJ’s Children’s Home and BCFS International Children’s Shelter.

Just five days after he reached the United States, the 15-year-old Honduran boy awoke in his Tucson, Arizona, immigrant shelter one morning in 2015 to find a youth care worker in his room, tickling his chest and stomach.

When he asked the man, who was 46, what he was doing, the man left. But he returned two more times, rubbing the teen’s penis through his clothing and then trying to reach under his boxers. “I know what you want, I can give you anything you need,” said the worker, who was later convicted of molestation.

In 2017, a 17-year-old from Honduras was recovering from surgery at the shelter when he woke up to find a male staff member standing by his bed. “You have it very big,” the man said, referring to the teen’s penis. Days later, that same employee brushed the teen with his hand while he was playing video games. When the staff member approached him again, the boy locked himself in a bathroom.