Where are the migrant child facilities? Scattered across America

President Trump has signed an executive order to halt the family separation process he created, but at least 2,500 children have already been taken from their parents and sent to shelters in at least 15 states. Some are as young as a few months old. Hundreds have been apart from distraught parents for several weeks. The system for reuniting these children with parents arrested for crossing the border illegally is chaotic, so the humanitarian crisis could persist for months.

Across the United States, the federal government is responsible for the care of about 12,000 migrant children in about 100 shelters, which includes the 2,500 removed from their parents in the past five weeks. The rest are youngsters who came across the border alone. It’s a billion-dollar industry that has grown rapidly under the Trump administration’s push to close the border.

In Texas, 32 licensed facilities shelter migrant children. Southwest Key is the largest operator in the state, housing almost 4,000 children as of mid-May in 17 facilities, according to the Texas Tribune. The nonprofit organization has grown apace with surges in Central American youth seeking refuge. So, too, has annual compensation for its chief executive, Juan Sanchez; IRS filings indicate he earned nearly $1.5 million in 2016.

The temporary tent city at Tornillo, east of El Paso, houses migrant children and had been expected to expand to receive youngsters forcibly separated from their families.

Inside Southwest Key’s Casa Padre shelter

The secretive shelter in Brownsville houses more than 1,400 immigrant boys, many who crossed the border by themselves and dozens who were separated from their parents when picked up by border agents, under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy targeting illegal border crossings. The original capacity for the facility was 1186.

[Inside Casa Padre, the converted Walmart where the U.S. is holding nearly 1,500 immigrant children]