Private sector seeks to profit by detaining migrant kids

SAN BENITO, Texas (AP) — On a recent day in a remodeled brick church in the Rio Grande Valley, a caregiver tried to soothe a toddler, offering him a sippy cup. The adult knew next to nothing about the little 3-year-old whose few baby words appeared to be Portuguese. Shelter staff had tried desperately to find his family, calling the Brazilian consulate and searching Facebook.

Nearby, infants in strollers were rolled through the building, pushed by workers in bright blue shirts lettered “CHS,” short for Comprehensive Health Services Inc., the private, for-profit company paid by the U.S. government to hold some of the smallest migrant children.

Sheltering migrant children has become a growing business for the Florida-based government contractor. More than 50 babies, toddlers and teens were closely watched on this day inside this clean, well-lit shelter surrounded by chain link fences.

A joint investigation by The Associated Press and FRONTLINE has found that the Trump administration has started shifting some of the caretaking of migrant children from mostly religious-based nonprofits to private, for-profit contractors.

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EDITOR’S NOTE _ This story is part of an ongoing joint investigation between The Associated Press and the PBS series FRONTLINE on the treatment of migrant children, which includes an upcoming film.

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So far, the only private company caring for migrant children is CHS, owned by Washington, D.C.-area based contractor Caliburn International Corp. In June, CHS held more than 20% of all migrant children in government custody. And even as the number of children has declined, the company’s federal funding for their care has continued to flow. That’s partly because CHS is still staffing a large Florida facility with 2,000 workers even though...