The Chattanooga Police Department is looking for a 16-year-old boy who went missing from a Highland Park shelter housing unaccompanied migrant children.
Elisa Myzal, department spokesperson, said the child was reported missing on the evening of June 14. The case is assigned to the department’s Missing Persons Unit, and the child has not returned or been located, Myzal said.
The facility near downtown is a state-licensed facility housing unaccompanied migrant children. The Georgia-based Baptiste Group operates the facility with a federal contract through the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
In the past three months, local leaders, including the governor and members of the state’s congressional delegation, have expressed outrage about the movement of migrant children through the state to facilities like the one in Chattanooga. The shelter was licensed by the state last year, a license that was renewed in February.
The news of the search comes after it was revealed Wednesday that the Highland Park facility is being investigated by state and federal authorities for potential child abuse. Jennifer Nichols, commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, told lawmakers during a Government Operations Joint Subcommittee meeting on Education, Health and General Welfare that a child at the facility told inspectors he witnessed abuse.