GUATEMALA CITY, April 27, (AP): The aid group Save the Children said there is nothing to support accusations of misconduct, speaking after Guatemalan prosecutors raided its offices in the Central American country looking for evidence of alleged abuse of migrant children.
"We have been shocked and puzzled by the unprecedented search of our offices by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Guatemala,” the organization said in a press release Thursday night hours after the raid.
The group said it was not aware of any specific accusations against it.
"We defend the rights of children and adolescents and ensure that they survive, learn and are protected from harm in more than 100 countries around the world,” said the group, which has worked in Guatemala since 1976.
The raid came after prosecutors - themselves accused by the US of corruption and trying to undermine Guatemala’s democracy - claimed Save the Children and a number of other non-governmental groups could "be participating in child trafficking operations.”
Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche said the raid was to search for evidence from a complaint made relating to those claims, which was "transnational and of great importance” because it involves children’s rights.
The escalating controversy began last week when Fox News contributor Sara Carter published a video of Angel Pineda, the secretary general of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, saying it had received a complaint about the organizations. Carter was the first to announce the raid on social media before police and prosecutors had even entered the offices.
In the video, Pineda called not on the Biden administration or other international authorities, but on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to aid him in the investigation.
Paxton, a Republican, has railed against US President Joe Biden's handling of rising migration to the US-Mexico border. In February, he tried to sue a migrant aid group in El Paso, accusing it of "facilitating illegal entry to the United States, alien harboring, human smuggling, and operating a stash house.” The effort was blocked by a judge.