At least 10 people hired to work at the temporary shelter for unaccompanied immigrant children at Naval Base Ventura County had their positions terminated because of their work authorization through the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
The group, led by Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice — Ventura County, is in the process of filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice seeking a formal apology and compensation for lost wages from nonprofit Southwest Key Programs that operated the now-closed shelter.
The Port Hueneme shelter was hastily opened June 6 as one of three military sites designated as emergency shelters to help cope with the surge of unaccompanied children — primarily from Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras — illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
About 1,540 immigrant teenagers temporarily lived at the Port Hueneme shelter during the two months it operated.
The federal Administration for Children and Families closed the emergency shelters in Port Hueneme, Texas and Oklahoma at the beginning of August, but the Defense Department authorized the use of the three facilities through January if they need to be reopened.
Texas-based Southwest Key Programs, which has a cooperative agreement with the Administration for Children and Families, was tasked with staffing the shelter that started housing immigrant teenagers the day after the Defense Department authorized use of the facility, Administration for Children spokesman Kenneth Wolfe said.
Southwest Key runs 14 permanent shelters for unaccompanied minors across Arizona, Texas and California, but the Port Hueneme facility was the first time the nonprofit had operated a temporary shelter on a military site.
In the process of hiring hundreds to staff the shelter, Southwest Key hired several people who are legally authorized to work in the United States, but are neither legal permanent residents nor U.S. citizens.
Southwest Key's requirements to work at the shelter included being at least 21 years old, legally permitted to work in the U.S., having a valid driver's license or ID, speaking and understanding Spanish, and having at least a high school diploma or GED.
Under most circumstances, however, an individual needs to have at least legal permanent resident status to access a military site.
Naval Base Ventura County spokeswoman Kimberly Gearhart said people who aren't legal permanent residents or citizens can be granted base access if they have a relative living on base or are visiting under a working environment.
But the process is "fairly lengthy and Southwest Key wouldn't have been able to authorize it because they're contractors and not military," Gearhart said.
Less than two weeks after the shelter opened, two women went to Naval Base Ventura County for their first day as youth care workers at the shelter and gained access to the base with their forms of California identification.
But after getting to the shelter facility, they were promptly escorted off the base by a Southwest Key administrator because they were not legal residents, according to CLUE-VC Executive Director Juana Tapia.
Southwest Key was "just hiring left and right and trying to fill the positions as quickly as possible," Tapia said. "They seem to be playing this Ping-Pong game with these Dreamers. Nobody was telling them what had happened and why they had been hired."
Southwest Key did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The next day, Southwest Key told employees without legal resident status they were being let go because they could not gain access to the base.
"If it's so commonly known that with it being a Navy Base there's extra rules and special precautions that they take, I don't understand how that mistake could have been made," Tapia said. "We continue to think of them (Southwest Key) as very negligent."
Oxnard residents Gabriela Macias, 22, and Cinthia Montero, 24, were hired to work as youth care workers earning $16 per hour at the shelter, but their positions were terminated during their training session June 18 because they are not legal permanent residents.
The women are authorized to work in the country after being approved for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which allows certain minors who were brought into the United States illegally to apply for renewable work authorization and temporary protection from deportation. DACA recipients can also get a Social Security number and a driver's license.
Macias and Montero are among the 10 local residents filing a complaint against Southwest Key with the Department of Justice.
The day after Macias, 22, graduated with bachelor's degrees in Spanish and Latin American studies from UC Santa Barbara, she left two part-time jobs and moved back to Oxnard to start her training with Southwest Key.
"It was a cause that I really cared about and I wanted to see these kids and I wanted to make sure they were in good conditions," she said. "I literally dropped everything for that. It was very stressful for me. For it to just fall apart like that, it was very stressful being unemployed and not working."
Montero said after she accepted the Southwest Key position, she gave up her job at Macy's where she was working 24 hours per week, another job at the bookstore at Oxnard College and canceled her summer college courses.
The shelter positions required they work 12-hour shifts six days per week.
"I felt that this chance was a once in a lifetime opportunity," she said. "Being a child whose father was deported was something that was near to my heart because I could relate and I was really excited about it."
Montero said being unexpectedly fired after leaving her other commitments was a financial shock.
"I want to put my foot down and say, ‘No, it's not OK. You can't be playing with people's lives like this. You can't come here and promise things and not go through with it,'" she said. "It hurt me quite a lot."