Migrant shelter for unaccompanied children reports more runaways to El Cajon police
Migrant shelter for unaccompanied children reports more runaways to El Cajon police than to state officials
Wendy Fry
An El Cajon shelter for unaccompanied migrant children reported seven runaway children to police in 2017, but reported only three of those to the California Department of Social Services, which oversees such facilities.
The facility, known as Casa San Diego, is run by a Texas-based nonprofit organization, Southwest Key, which contracts with the federal government to provide care to children who either show up at the U.S.-Mexico border without any parents or who are separated from their legal guardians by U.S. immigration officials.
The shelter houses about 65 children ages 6 to 17 at Broadway and Oro Street in El Cajon. Southwest Key operates 27 such shelters for unaccompanied migrant children across California, Arizona and Texas.
Records obtained by U-T Watchdog under the California Public Records Act show the shelter called El Cajon police 19 times in 2017, often involving a faulty burglar alarm on the facility’s southwest entrance. On seven occasions, the calls to police were to report runaway juveniles.
According to state records, three of those cases were reported to the Social Services department, which is the state agency responsible for providing oversight over all juveniles living outside their parent’s care.
“All licensed group homes are required to report such incidents to the department within 24 hours and follow-up with a written report in 10 days,” said state Social Services spokesman Michael Weston.
Weston said state officials met with the nonprofit in September to discuss “concerns about reporting requirements with Southwest Key’s executive director. This includes the need to notify the department when there is any contact between the facility and law enforcement.”
Jeff Eller, a spokesman for Southwest Key, said he could not discuss specific cases. In general, he said, most states prevent group home facilities from locking minors inside or restraining them to keep them from leaving.
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In one of the cases unreported to the state, the minor returned to the shelter the same day he ran away, police records show. In another case, one that Southwest Key did report to Social Services, the minor turned out to be a 24-year-old man.
El Cajon police officers found the individual the same day he ran away at a nearby restaurant, and determined he was actually an adult man pretending to be a child in the facility, police records show.
“Juvenile detained at taco shop,” the El Cajon Police Department report says. “States he is actually 24 years old and went to get food.”
The police report says the agency called Border Patrol to take custody of the man.
It remains unclear whether all of the missing children were found. One child returned the same day he ran away, the records show.
“We have not received any follow up reports on those cases,” Weston said, when asked if the runaway children were ever located, or if they remain missing.
Contributor Wendy Fry can be reached at wendym.fry04@gmail.com.
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