Calling the policy “very inhumane” and “terrible,” Sánchez said Saturday that his organization has “nothing to do with any of that.”
He said some 200 children split from their parents since the policy went into effect are still in Southwest Key’s shelters, and that a small fraction of them have parents who have waived their right to reunification.
“We do not run detention centers. We do not run any prisons. And we do not separate kids from their parents,” said Sánchez, who founded the nonprofit in 1987, with five employees. “If we didn’t take them then what happens to those kids?”
Thirty years after Southwest Key was founded, Sánchez said it remains true to its nonprofit status because it provides vulnerable children with an array of services, ranging from medical care and education to weekend outings and religious services.
But critics have accused Sánchez of profiting off aggressive immigration policies, and have concentrated their scrutiny on the $1.5 million he received in compensation, including salary and a retirement package, in 2016.
Sánchez said the CEOs of other large nonprofits also earn large salaries and suggested his ethnicity played a role in the negative coverage he’s received.
“When you look at the size of Southwest Key, they wondered, how could a Latino have come up and built a company that big? There must be something wrong,” he said. “People cannot understand conceptually, how a Latino can make that much money. People have never seen it.”
Now operating more than two dozen shelters across three states, Southwest Key brought in some $450 million in revenue this fiscal year, and has seen its workforce balloon to 8,000. Though housing unaccompanied migrant youth is a bulk of their work, Southwest Key also operates juvenile justice programs, and owns a for-profit holding company that manages a handful of small “social enterprises.”
During the interview Saturday, Sánchez was asked whether he benefited financially from other for-profit entities, including any companies that own property where Southwest Key runs migrant shelters.
“You don't have any financial stake in the LLCs or anything like that, that Southwest Key is doing business with or leases?” Sánchez was asked. “Anything like that?"
Sánchez said he did not.
But after acknowledging Sánchez’s investment in the LLC that owns Casa Conroe, Eller, the spokesman, said that Southwest Key benefits from the arrangement.
The “per bed rent at Casa Conroe is substantially less than rent paid per bed at any other of Southwest Key’s 26 child care facilities," Eller said. “We intentionally charge much less than the fair market value. It’s the right thing to do."
Disclosure: Jeff Eller, a former Texas Tribune board member, has been a financial supporter of the Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.