Texas' largest private provider of housing for immigrant children has increased its shelters' temporary capacity by more than 700 percent since the Trump administration began separating families who crossed the border illegally in April, an analysis by The Dallas Morning News has found.

State officials have cleared Southwest Key's shelters to hold 1,763 children under normal conditions, according to reports updated Tuesday.

But over the past three months, the state has approved "variances" that allow the nonprofit's facilities to temporarily house even more children — even though they were cited for 28 high-risk violations between January 2017 and March 2018.

And since April, its facilities have been cited for 11 more violations, including two that were classified as “high-risk.” One child was not given prescribed medication, and another was left unsupervised with a knife. Many children’s files lack information about family contacts, country of origin, medical history and care plans.

Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which licenses the facilities, said the agency works to bring facilities that have been issued violations into compliance.

“Our role as regulators is to inspect facilities, find violations and work with the facility to make corrections. We cite and correct violations as a routine part of our work,” Williams said in a written statement.

“Our focus is making sure facilities get into compliance and are doing everything they can to ensure safety. Working with facilities to make [them] better and help them meet all standards is in the best interest of the children who are placed there,” she added. “Our priority is always what’s in the best interest of the child in terms of safety and standards for Texas.

“We are not going to issue a variance if our regulatory assessment shows that it could negatively impact child safety.”

State officials have granted 13 active variances to Southwest Key facilities. The extra capacity means these shelters can hold 762 more children, and two of Southwest Key’s shelters are seeking variances to add 42 more beds.

The nonprofit has also received nearly half a billion dollars from the U.S. government this year to operate its 26 immigrant children's shelters in Texas, Arizona and California. Of those, 16 are in Texas, according to state records.

Requesting more space for kids

Although the president signed an executive order Wednesday ending family separations at the border, state estimates show more than 5,000 immigrant children are currently in Texas residential shelter facilities for minors. The commission said there are about 37 shelters equipped to house them.

To receive a license, facilities must undergo inspections by the agency that take into account more than 2,000 standards, said Victoria Ford, the agency’s chief policy officer.

Those standards include how many children will be in each bedroom and whether they will be sleeping in a bed or a cot; how many children are sharing one bathroom sink, toilet and shower; and whether the children can receive appropriate medical attention at the facility.

Requests for variances are evaluated for compliance with the agency’s licensing standards and require “substantial documentation” to support the need for the additional capacity, according to the agency.

But the standards guiding the ratio of care providers to children do not change, said Jean Shaw, the associate commissioner for child care licensing for the agency.

She said the agency also does one unannounced inspection per year.

“We take great care to be sure the variance would not negatively impact children in care and look at a variety of factors including whether the request is reasonable, risk variable, last inspection, will it affect children safety and other elements,” Williams said. “We’re not going to grant variances that would put kids at risk and don’t meet the standards we are looking for.”

The variances are granted for a specific period of time but are always temporary, Williams said.

No Texas facility requested one in the first three months of 2018. But as the zero-tolerance policy went into effect in early April, Southwest Key was the first to request additional capacity, adding 92 beds at two of its facilities. Over the next two months, the company received variances for 11 more facilities to reach its current total of 762.

If Southwest Key's requests for 42 more openings are granted, all but one of the company's 16 Texas facilities will be operating above their licensed capacities, with eight exceeding their normal limits by more than 25 percent.

Only two immigrant children shelters in the state that aren’t operated by Southwest Key have sought variances in the same time period, totaling 222 extra beds. Shelters that have not requested variances did not return requests for comment.

Southwest Key’s capacity for housing children has grown significantly since 2014, when the number of immigrant children crossing the border illegally and without their parents surged. In four years, the nonprofit has more than doubled the number of people it can house, opening new shelters including the 1,186-bed Casa Padre facility and expanding existing ones.

Meanwhile, all other shelter operators in the state have reduced their capacity by one for every 10 beds, increasing Southwest Key’s share of statewide permanent residential capacity from around 45 percent in June 2014 to more than two-thirds today.

Staff computational journalist Stephanie Lamm contributed to this report.