Southwest Key Hired Child Case Manager Previously Arrested for Child Pornography

A former Border Patrol agent who resigned from the agency after he was arrested on child pornography charges was later hired as a case manager at a major shelter for unaccompanied immigrant children in Brownsville, Texas Monthly has learned.

Ernesto Padron worked at Austin-based nonprofit Southwest Key’s Casa Padre shelter last year, where, as a case manager, he had direct access to unaccompanied immigrant minors. He had previously worked as a Border Patrol agent until his resignation in October 2010, when he was arrested in Brownsville for alleged possession of child pornography, a second-degree felony, according to the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office and publicly available Cameron County criminal court records. His case was later dismissed after a years-long case backlog allowed the statute of limitations to expire.

In an emailed statement, a Southwest Key spokesperson said the organization eventually found out that Padron had previously faced child pornography charges and suspended him immediately. The spokesperson said Padron remained suspended until May 2017, when he was one of 966 employees laid off by Southwest Key after the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the border decreased significantly that year, reducing the staffing needs throughout the nonprofit’s shelters. It’s unclear how long Padron had been working at the shelter before Southwest Key discovered his arrest record. Padron declined to comment on the record when reached by Texas Monthly.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/southwest-key-hired-child-case-manager-previously-arrested-child-pornography/