FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Victor Landa, 210-884-3429

victor.landa@sanantonio.gov

Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales’ statement regarding San Antonio’s RK Group

profiting from the detention of children

SAN ANTONIO (June 25, 2018) - I am deeply concerned that a San Antonio-based company has
found itself in the position of profiting from the detention of immigrant children.

BCFS Health and Human Services is a non-profit organization contracted by the Federal Government
to respond to emergency situations and the RK Group is their for-profit subcontractor providing
emergency nutritional services. They are on call 24 hours a day across the Western United States.

In that capacity they were called-on to respond to the Trump Administration’s decision to detain
immigrant children who had been separated from their families. It has been reported that 400
immigrant children, some of them forcibly separated from their mothers, are detained in the Tornillo
immigration tent camp near El Paso, Texas.

I am furious at the Trump Administration for its flagrant offense against families and children, and am
troubled that any company would profit from the detention of children.

One thing is clear, this is not a natural disaster. The plight of children torn from their family’s protection
is a deliberate choice made at the highest levels of government. This is a calculated, man-made
tragedy.

Another thing that’s clear to me is that the children need to be fed and cared for, and hunger, as the
RK Group says, knows no politics. So while I’m thankful that the RK Group is providing their well-
known caring service to these detained children, I also feel it’s wrong to profit from this politically-
induced crisis.

Because of this I call on the RK Group - which the San Antonio Express-News says “received at least
$179 million in federal contracts since 2015” - to donate profits from their work at the Tornillo tent
camp to a non-profit organization, such as RAICES or Catholic Charities, that work’s directly to ensure
the health and safety of immigrants.

The separation of families and the detention of children are dehumanizing acts which are in violent
opposition to San Antonio’s most basic cultural values of family and decency.

In San Antonio we protect families, and donating profits from such an inhumane practice as the
detention of children is the right thing to do.

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