AURA BOGADO: All of the kids that I've identified have been from Latin America. They mostly are from Central America, specifically from Guatemala and from Honduras. Some of the kids did appear to arrive by themselves or with a group of friends, but most of the children that I've been able to identify that have been through there were indeed separated from their parents.
At this point I've tracked down several of the children. I've spoken with several of their sponsors. I've spoken with several of their parents. And that's also been really difficult conversations sometimes to have with their parents. There was a -- there's a mother, specifically, that I've been speaking with. You know, her son was only six years old when he was taken from her and placed in this office building, which is, again, not a shelter. It's not licensed to operate as such. It's not authorized under its contract to hold children overnight. And I've had to, you know, sometimes explain to parents, who are still in detention, who are still separated from their children and want to know anything that they can -- I need to sort of explain to them where they were held.
Some of the questions that parents ask me are: Who were they with? Were they with other children? Were they with adults? Is this a place where they got regular meals? It this a place where they could take a shower?
And, you know, when it comes to taking a shower, with the second facility, a neighbor there, Bill Weaver, explained to me that on multiple occasions over the course of two years, he saw children using bathroom sinks to bathe themselves. This is a shared office bathroom area in which three office suites were able to sort of go in and out, just like you see in a lot of offices. It's not exactly a public bathroom, but people can come in and out. So that also raises a lot of questions about what kinds of people may have come into contact with these children over the time that they were held in these offices by MVM.
AMY GOODMAN: Aura, you were the first to report on the drugging of children. That was at Shiloh in Texas. We're now seeing this Washington Post report about Casa Guadalupe. That's in Chicago, run by Heartland Alliance. So, in that case, we hear about kids being injected with some kind of drugs. The kids don't understand. Explain what you found.
AURA BOGADO: Sure. I'm not too familiar with the Chicago story. I have been so laser-focused on trying to track down the children that we know were held at MVM offices. But I do know, from the story that we broke about Shiloh and the widespread abuses in so many of these shelters, the shelters that we do know the existence and locations of, everything ranging from sexual assault to neglect, and then, yes, forced drugging.
In Shiloh, children do allege that they were held down and injected with very powerful drugs. I spent time with a little boy who was nine years old when he spent six months there. And he was given very, very, very heavy psychotropic drugs. I was just texting with his mom actually earlier today, Maribel Bernardez. She finally got her son back after six months. But, you know, during the whole time he was there, she was so worried, because she saw him lethargic. She couldn't recognize this child that she was sometimes seeing through WhatsApp video, when she was able to call and see him. He was -- he felt very slow. He told me that he just felt like he was really slow and tired when he was there.
And, you know, he wound up at this facility because he tried to run away. He wanted to be with his mom. We know that children miss their parents. And he wanted very desperately to be with his mom, so he talked about running away, and he tried to run away. And that was one of the reasons for which he was evaluated by a psychiatrist and then sent to Shiloh, where he was drugged for six months, without his consent and without his mother's consent. The government knew full well where she was the entire time. A caseworker was in touch with her that entire time. They wouldn't give her custody of him. And they kept drugging him that whole time. She's still working to taper him off those drugs. He's only 10 years old now.
AMY GOODMAN: Aura Bogado, I want to thank you for being with us, immigration reporter for Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting. We'll link to your pieces, "Immigrant kids held in second Phoenix office seen bathing in sinks" [link], and your other recent report, "Immigrant children forcibly injected with drugs, lawsuit claims."
This is Democracy Now! In 30 seconds, we'll go to a report of a mother who talks about reuniting with her 3-year-old boy, and we'll speak with a psychoanalyst who is warning parents of separated children, when they reunite, they may not be the same child that left them. Stay with us.
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