Casa Padre

Casa Padre is a shelter for unaccompanied or separated immigrant minors in custody of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of Health & Human Services, located in Brownsville, Texas. The site opened in March 2017 and is still housing children in 2022 The building was formerly a Walmart store. The center is run by the nonprofit group Southwest Key Programs under contract from the federal government. Casa Padre is the largest licensed childcare facility in the United States, housing approximately 1,500 youths. The former Walmart store houses boys ranging from ages 10 to 17. According to the Internal Revenue Service, the group houses approximately 5,129 immigrant children in the United States, approximately 4 percent of the unaccompanied minors in the United States today. rdf:langString