the former employee faces a total of 11 charges. in a separate case police arrested this 32-year-old man who works at a phoenix shelter after he was accused of mow lesing a 14-year-old migrant girl. dianne gallagher is on this today. tell me what s happening with these cases. reporter: let s talk about that first one there in mesa, arizona, with the eight boys. look, this turned my stomach, brooke, just reading this to begin with. the man who has been charged in those cases his them is le veon paceco. it happened from august 2016 until july of 2017. he was a youth care worker at a southwest key facility in mesa, arizona. accords to documents with the court he basically molested these boys age 15 to 17, eight of them, he touched them in their genitalia over their clothes, he performed oral sex he is accused of doing with two of the boys and attempting to have sexual intercourse with at least one of them as well.
now, again, he has denied these, he has not been convicted of them. southwest key who is one of the largest operators, a contractor of these hhs orr facilities issued a statement to cnn where they essentially said, look, we followed protocol, any employee accused of abuse is immediately suspended and law enforcement is called. this is what we did in this case. in addition we reported it to orr and the appropriate state agency. we report these cases to law enforcement and state agencies when they happen. again, that is from southwest key. the case that you alluded to just a few moments ago in phoenix, arizona, with the 14-year-old girl that also happened at a southwest key facility, brooke. how widespread is this? well, to be very honest we re not quite sure. we are hearing about this more and more each week it seems like. there is at least one or two more cases. just last week pro publica who actually first reported that from the one in mesa, arizona, with le veon paceco they did a
last weeks and months. according to a source with knowledge of this situation, these white vans you see behind me here, they are being prepped to move some of these kids to be reunited with their parents. we haven t seen any kids just yet, but we have seen an infant child car seat being loaded into one of those vans. we were here a couple hours ago as well early this morning, where about five kids we saw being loaded into those vans. my colleague saw a similar scene at a separate shelter where about half a dozen kids were loaded into a van along with their backpacks and at least one teddy bear. there may be some older kids involved as well, who are going to be reunited with their parents today. those kids are ones that have younger siblings. so the family can be together as one unit. now, southwest key, they re the operator of these children s shelters. they put out a statement today saying their staff, they were in early this morning to get these kids prepped and ready to go, to pack
for this. reporter: in legal documents filed late friday, the justice department indicated it would reunite families by detaining them together until their asylum claims are settled. that s not a good substitute for the reunification of these families. reporter: the senator hand delivered letters from children in his home state to immigrant children detained at a southwest key facility in brownsville, texas. families should be together. reporter: the trump administration has stopped reporting the number of families reunited. the administration last week reported 2,047 children were separated from their parents, but it s not clear if that number includes families separated as part of a near year-long test program before zero tolerance was announced along the border s el paso sector. protests against trump immigration policies only growing coast to coast. protests over the weekend with
recently separated from their parents so that their parents could be prosecuted but instead this 15-year-old honduran boy crossed the border illegally unaccompanied and undocumented. it was part of the trend that we followed for many, many years. of course in recent weeks, though, there s this renewed attention on these locations that care for these children to make sure these locations are caring for these children properly. southwest key, who owns and operates this facility, in a statement points out that they are not a detention center, they are simply a childcare facility. so when one of these children wants to leave the facility, there s not a whole lot they can do except accompany or at least walk with that child to the perimeter and ask them to remain on premises once they cross that line, then authorities have to be called. and that s exactly what took place yesterday afternoon. the brownsville police department confirming for me that yes, they searched for this child in and ar