AUSTIN — One of the largest shelters for unaccompanied minors in Texas includes a wall-sized mural of President Donald Trump.

“Kids would tell me it was an odd image to see, that it scared them. They didn't like it,” said Diana Gomez, who conducted legal screenings inside the shelter for several months in 2017.

The mural appears inside Southwest Key Program's Casa Padre shelter in Brownsville, where Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon was denied entry earlier this month. The shelter, located inside a former Walmart, held more than 1,000 children as of mid-May, according to state data.

A spokeswoman for Southwest Key said the mural has been there “since shortly after the shelter opened” and that there are paintings of many U.S. presidents.

“Each shelter is decorated to be child friendly and education is a component we try to incorporate into all our programming,” said spokeswoman Cindy Casares. She did not respond to questions about children’s reaction to the painting.

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Painted by a Southwest Key employee, the mural depicts President Trump’s head floating above the White House and in front of an American flag. The mural appears at the entrance to a hallway that leads from the cafeteria to more rooms, Gomez said. While other presidents, including Barack Obama, are painted inside the hallway, each of those is accompanied by an “inspiring quote” about immigration, while Trump’s is not, Gomez said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said a quote in Spanish and one in English now accompany Trump’s mural, one of roughly 20 depicting presidents. One says, “Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war”; he couldn’t read the note in Spanish.

“A lot of (the children) said they had heard a lot of anti-immigrant things Donald Trump had said,” Gomez said. “They were fleeing violence in their homes to seek opportunity and a better life in the U.S. ... They saw Donald Trump as a person who would be a threat to that hope and eventually deport them back to their country where they would face inevitable death.”

The shelters are in the spotlight as children are being separated from their parents along the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. In May, more than 600 families were separated at the border, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Southwest Key Programs runs 16 of the roughly three-dozen shelters in Texas that contract with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to state data.

The shelters care for unaccompanied minors who have been apprehended by federal officials. The children are next placed with relatives or put into a federal foster care system, a process overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

amorris@express-news.net