As the American people suffered from Joe Biden's border crisis, the executives of a non-profit accused of child exploitation were getting rich.
Southwest Key Programs struck gold, receiving $3 billion from the Biden administration that allowed top executives to inflate their salaries almost twofold even as kids suffered abuse, the New York Post reported.
It's just one example of how Biden's border chaos benefited bad actors, from human traffickers to foreign gangs that expanded their footprint on U.S. soil.
Southwest Key Programs is the largest operator of shelters for unaccompanied alien children in the U.S. Before the second Trump administration severed ties with the group, it worked with the Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement to house alien children.
As a record number of alien children flooded into the country under Biden, Southwest Key Programs received $3 billion from the federal government, according to HHS data.
The spike in funding appears to have benefited the non-profit's head honchos, who saw their salaries rise significantly, the New York Post found after a review of tax information.
At the start of the Biden administration, Southwest Key CEO Anselmo Villarreal was paid $491,642, but by 2023, he was earning $1,174,551.
The group's chief human resources official Jose Arroyo Davila, and chief information officer Andy Harper, each doubled their pay to $600,000. Geraldo Rivera, the senior VP of immigration services and later chief program officer, almost doubled his salary from $312,791 to $555,998.
While this was happening, the Biden administration was rushing to hand off alien children to poorly vetted sponsors, with former HHS secretary Xavier Becerra likening the process to an "assembly line."
The Biden administration ultimately lost track of some 32,000 alien children, a government report found last year. In July, the Biden administration had an epiphany and sued Southwest Key for sexually exploiting children.
Republicans had raised the alarm months earlier, with Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Ia.) sharing whistleblower disclosures that Southwest Key was placing children at homes linked to gang activity and possible child-trafficking.
The Trump administration has severed ties with Southwest Key over the alleged abuse of children in its care, and the DOJ consequently dropped its lawsuit.
“This administration is working fearlessly to end the tragedy of human trafficking and other abuses of unaccompanied alien children who enter the country illegally,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“For too long, pernicious actors have exploited such children both before and after they enter the United States. Today’s action is a significant step toward ending this appalling abuse of innocents.”
