2,300 children already separated from their parents sitting in detention centers and shelters now. cnn s polo sandoval reports. reporter: this is a detention facility for the youngest immigrant children being held against their will in a u.s. city. it s a nondescript former private home in a tiny texas town of combs, 20 miles from the border. from outside these black strollers are the only signs of some 60 children ranging in age from infants to 10 years old housed inside. some may have been forcibly separated from their parents after crossing into the country illegally. the u.s. government calls it a tender age facility. one of at least three in texas alone. today the ceo of southwest key, the company that operates the center and others offered his own description. i want to make it very, very clear that this is not a detention center. we have a license by the state of texas to run a child care facility. and what we run is a child care facility. reporter: this facility in combs
that the children are going through, but also that the workers are going through. this is as much a labor problem the issue as southwest key is many problems wrapped up in one. john, you have been photographing the border migrant crisis since, what the bush administration? well, really in the last ten years. so have you seen anything change? what have you seen over time? well, over time there have been more families coming across. this was really the case starting in 2014 when people were coming from honduras, salvador and guatemala. it s just increased over time. the difference between the obama administration and the trump era is that now families are not given a notice to appear in court later. they re being separated and i could see in the pictures that i shot this last week of that little girl separation anxiety.
they denied that. so i handed my resignation letter in stating that reason. i want to read what a spokesperson said. it says our staff have great expertise in dealing with this population, we have very high professional development standards. what do you think? do you agree with that assessment? look at the job boards. look how many times they ve looked for a program director, an assistant program director. any city which has a southwest key facility is flooded, flooded with job postings. and also job reviews which kind of show not only the horror of that the children are going through, but also that the workers are going through. this is as much a labor problem the issue as southwest key is many problems wrapped up in one. john, you have been photographing the border migrant crisis since, what the bush administration? well, really in the last ten years.
key are opened in low-income latino neighborhoods where people, their financial situation doesn t allow them to do much, and that s a purposeful tactic by southwest key. they know these people who sometimes have questionable immigration statuses or really need the money aren t going to speak out and are just basically going to suck it up and despite doing a federal level service and a federal level responsibility are not getting federal level support or pay, that they ll still continue to do the work, no matter how bad it gets. i want to put up on the screen here just a statement from southwest key. again, southwest key, this is the company, this nonprofit, operating 27 of these shelters across the country. for last 20 years, we hire staff that have a child care or social work background to be prepared for to support the developmental and emotional needs of all children who arrive at our facility. that statement coming from southwest key. they re pushing back against the claims of
behavior. southwest key said the training policy requires a minimum of 80 hours classroom and on the job training before they could supervise a child but we read a story about a employee in arizona, a whistleblower who spoke to the los angeles times and they said he described the facility as unequipped to deal with children, children were running away and screaming and throwing furniture and attempting suicide, unquote. today the president of the academy the american academy of pediatrics told cnn the trauma of separating children from parents amounts to child abuse. cnn is learning more about the shelters housing the youngest kids separated from their families. nick valencia joins us from brownsville, texas. and how are the small children, we haven t seen the kids in t the in these tours approved by the government. this could have serious long-term consequences for and the american psychiatric