Whistleblowers allege migrant children are poorly cared for by disaster cleanup contractor

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WASHINGTON Children housed in one of the Biden Administration’s largest shelters for unaccompanied migrant minors were looked after by entrepreneurs with no Spanish skills or childcare experience who usually stood idly by the water’s edge. overcrowded tents, according to two federal employees who have come forward to file a whistleblower complaint to Congress.

Department of Health and Human Services contractor Servpro specializes in cleaning up after water, fire and storm related disasters. He shows no record of having processed a contract related to child welfare before caring for nearly 5,000 children housed at the Fort Bliss, Texas facility in May.

At the end of June, Fort Bliss was detaining fewer than 800 children, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. He has been the subject of repeated allegations of inadequate child care.

A spokesperson for Servpro Industries said the contract was entered into by a franchise holder without the knowledge of the company and therefore Servpro did not have a comment on the specific allegations. Servpro has more than 1,700 franchisees.

“When we became aware of this issue, we immediately informed the franchise operator that these were not approved Servpro service offerings,” said Kim Brooks, spokesperson for Servpro. “We have been informed by the franchise operator that it no longer provides these services through the Servpro franchise.”

Servpro Industries did not provide the name of the franchise when contacted, and whistleblowers were not sure which franchise held the contract, only that the contractor’s workers were wearing Servpro uniforms with the motto “As if this had never happened ”.

Two federal employees seconded to Fort Bliss, Laurie Elkin and Justin Mulaire, filed the whistleblower complaint Wednesday to publicly share their experiences at the facility under Servpro’s direction from May to early June. Elkin and Mulaire are attorneys for the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Chicago who were temporarily employed at Fort Bliss when the Biden administration called for volunteers across the federal government to help deal with the influx of unaccompanied children crossing the southern border.

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“The contractor’s staff told Ms. Elkin and Mr. Mulaire that they had not received any training before starting work and that they had little guidance on their role,” said Elkin and Mulaire. in their whistleblower complaint, which was sent to House committees on Wednesday. and the Senate, as well as the Inspector General of Health and Social Services.

Lawyers for the whistleblowers said that “the conditions they witnessed have caused physical, mental and emotional damage affecting dozens of children” and that Fort Bliss management has ignored their concerns. The complaint does not allege illegal behavior, but rather gross mismanagement and a threat to public health and safety.

Servpro supervisors were responsible for overseeing the large tents, at the time filled with 1,000 to 1,500 children, according to Elkin and Mulaire, where “they did not initiate any interaction with the children and were generally content with stand still, passively looking at the children “.

They said that many of Servpro’s contractors saw the work “more as crowd control than helping the youth” and documented that they used loud music and, at one point, a megaphone to wake up children in the morning. Mulaire said the ratio of federal employees to Servpro employees in the boys’ tent he supervised was around 1 in 6 when he left in June.

Servpro contractors reportedly told Elkin and Mulaire that none of the tent supervisors were to interact with the children “unless a child specifically approached them.” But Elkin and Mulaire said children in acute mental or medical distress were less likely to seek help, and when they did, entrepreneurs wondered why children needed attention.

Elkin and Mulaire said the children’s days were largely unstructured and they spent the time “either sitting or lying in bed, or walking around with relatively little activity available to them.”

Some of the federal details bought board games and balls with money from their own pockets to keep the kids entertained, they said.

Immigration advocates have called on the Biden administration to end the use of emergency reception shelters like Fort Bliss and only use facilities that operate in accordance with state licensing requirements for children, especially since the number of unaccompanied migrant children in the care of health and social services has fallen from more than 20,000 to less than 15,000. So far, the HHS, which has closed some emergency reception facilities, has not announced plans to close Fort Bliss.

Elkin and Mulaire said it was impossible to supervise all the children, and they were particularly concerned about children who might be in distress on the lower bunks that they couldn’t see.

Elkin said she found three girls in the lower bunks who needed urgent medical or mental health care, but encountered resistance when she tried to help them. A girl was sleeping continuously and, when approached, told Elkin that she had a sore throat. According to Elkin, an entrepreneur said medical staff wouldn’t be able to do anything for her, but Elkin took the girl anyway.

Elkin said another had a panic attack after learning her sister was in a coma and was told to take the girl outside to calm her down. Elkin said that in the third case, she discovered a girl in a lower bunk who was ghostly pale and revealed that she had heavy vaginal bleeding. Elkin said her supervisor questioned his decision to take the girl to a doctor, but Elkin insisted and the girl eventually received medical treatment.

Mulaire and Elkin also alleged that clean bedding and clothing was not regularly provided.

Due to the hot, dry air of Fort Bliss, the tents were often filled with sand and dust, but even children who stayed there for more than two months were never given clean sheets, according to Mulaire and Elkin.

“The children also reported not having clean underwear and socks, which made them reluctant to exercise or bathe as they knew they did not have clean clothes to change into. “, they said in the complaint. Elkin said some girls would advocate for clean underwear.

Elkin and Mulaire said they had few places to sound the alarm on what they were seeing. During the orientation, employees of the United States Public Health Department told them not to complain about anything they witnessed during the first 10 days of their employment and only then to send complaints to a “suggestions” email address.

Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Elkin and Mulaire’s claims or Servpro’s statement.

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