What we know about the company proposing a child detention facility in downtown Houston

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- We got this question on Facebook and it was one that we were thinking about: what do we know about the company proposing to house undocumented children in downtown Houston.

Southwest Key is a nonprofit, but that hardly means there is not a lot of money at stake.

The federal funding just since 2007 has skyrocketed from 2012 to 2018, totaling nearly half a billion dollars in the last fiscal year.

Take it all together, that's $1.6 billion in federal contracts, almost all of to it house undocumented children since just 2007.

It is up 31% every year for just this one company.

It operates 16 facilities across the state. In all, they are already permitted to house 3,300 undocumented children in the state of Texas.

They operate five facilities in the Houston area, not counting the one that they are trying to open on the southeast side of downtown.

The agency is headed by Juan Sanchez. In 2015, the last tax year they filed, he made nearly $800,000. According to that tax return, his wife, Jennifer was also on the payroll for nearly $281,000. All told, that one family, operating this nonprofit brought in $1.1 million in that year alone.

All of that money before they have been paid a single dollar to operate that facility at 419 Emancipation.

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