Southwest Key Programs pulled down roughly $3 billion in federal taxpayer funds between fiscal years 2021 and 2024, according to data compiled by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to help shelter and place migrant kids with US sponsors as border crossings hit an all-time high under President Joe Biden.
Over roughly the same period, the Austin, Texas-based nonprofit’s higher-ups also raked in much higher take-home pay — with the group’s president disclosing a whopping 139% increase, per the latest tax filings.
At the same time, Southwest Key was hit with investigations — and a federal lawsuit — that alleged some migrant kids in its care were sexually abused by employees or else handed over to traffickers.
Anselmo Villarreal, who became the group’s president and CEO in February 2021, was paid $491,642 over the course of that first fiscal year — but saw his compensation skyrocket to $1,174,551 by fiscal year 2023.
Other Southwest Key executives — including chief human resources official Jose Arroyo Davila and its chief information officer Andy Harper — saw their salaries doubled, to the $600,000 range.
Eric Marin, the organization’s CFO, earned $349,232 in fiscal year 2021, but his successor, Roberto Flores, took down $583,139 two years later.
Another good earner, Geraldo Rivera, the senior VP of immigration services and later chief program officer, surged from $312,791 to $555,998 the year before Biden left office.
According to additional internal payment records obtained by The Post, those executives and a dozen other top employees at Southwest Key recorded those six-figure salary surges during the first two years of the Biden administration — with increases ranging from 10% to as high as 112%.
Southwest Key Programs chief of staff Christina Cantu, for example, was making only $86,300 in 2019. By fiscal year 2022, Cantu’s income was recorded at $326,228.
An HHS Office of Inspector General report in September 2020 had also already found Southwest Key improperly padding their executives’ pockets with higher pay and bonuses.
On average, the top five executive salaries recorded in forms filed with the IRS spiked from $420,000 to $720,000 between 2021 and 2023 — even as its finances were in the red by millions of dollars for two of those three fiscal years.
Those pay hikes also came as a handful of Southwest Key officials — including its top lobbyist Vivian Panting — were sending small-dollar donations to Democratic campaign funds.
Another vice president at the organization, Veronica Delgado-Savage, contributed more than $700 to Biden’s and then Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign and associated PAC, FEC records show. Her income during their administration rose from $297,792 to $326,086.
Those pay hikes also came as a handful of Southwest Key officials — including its top lobbyist Vivian Panting — were sending small-dollar donations to Democratic campaign funds.
Southwest Key’s upward-trending pay under Biden was first reported on by The Free Press in May 2024, before the group’s 2023 filings were made public.
Biden’s HHS doled out roughly half of the $6 billion in taxpayer funding the nonprofit has taken in since 2003 — but the cash infusion didn’t improve outcomes for the children in its care.
The Justice Department sued Southwest Key Programs last July, accusing some supervisors and employees of “severe” and “pervasive” rape and sex abuse of the kids between 2015 and 2023.
Congressional investigations had also uncovered evidence that the organization placed the migrant kids who entered the US with unvetted sponsors who allegedly trafficked or exploited them.
“Not only did the Biden-Harris administration create the worst border crisis in American history — it empowered opportunistic nonprofits like Southwest Key Programs and Endeavors to profit off it,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) told The Post.
“This Congress, the Homeland Security Committee has continued uncovering the Biden administration’s use of taxpayer funds to fuel its border boondoggle,” added the chairman, whose panel uncovered some of the non-governmental groups that hit pay dirt.
“We remain committed to ensuring the federal government is a good steward of taxpayers’ hard-earned money and will be vigilantly pursuing those who unduly profited at the expense of innocent Americans.”