Employees at the largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children sexually abused and harassed minors in its care over the course of years, the U.S. Justice Department alleges in a lawsuit filed this week. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Austin, maintains that federal authorities uncovered a pattern of “severe” and “pervasive” harassment extending back to at least 2015 in shelters operated by Southwest Key Programs Inc. At least two of the Austin-based nonprofit’s employees have been criminally charged since 2020, according to the government’s petition. “Sexual harassment of children in residential shelters, where a child should be safe and secure, is abusive, dehumanizing and unlawful,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.