Shelter in the Storm

In 2014, four years before it became synonymous in the public imagination with the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” family separation policy, Southwest Key Programs applied for a permit from the city of Escondido, California, to open a children’s shelter. The wave of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border, which President Obama that summer labeled an “actual humanitarian crisis,” was at its apex. Of the 57,000 children who crossed the border alone in the 2014 fiscal year, more than 45,000 wound up in shelters like Southwest Key. The Austin, Texas–based nonprofit had evolved into a crucial link in a migration path that stretched from the violence-ravaged neighborhoods of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to U.S. cities like Houston and Chicago where Central-American immigrants have established thriving communities.

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