Leaked Video Shows Conditions At Harlem Center For Migrant Kids

EAST HARLEM, NY — A former employee of the Cayuga Centers foster care facility in East Harlem, which was used by the federal government to process 239 migrant children detained at the southern border, leaked photos and videos of conditions inside the facility.

The video, which was obtained exclusively by MSNBC and first reported by Rachel Maddow, shows the former employee talking to an immigrant girl who is crying because she hasn't spoken to her mother in more than a week.

"You want to speak with your mom? You want me to call your worker?" the employee who leaked the video says in Spanish.

When the girl tells the former employee her name she begins to cry. In the video, the girl explains that she was taken from the border with her 10-year-old sister and that she believes her mother is in Virginia.

Several New York City officials have toured the foster care facility, located on Park Avenue near East 131st Street, but no images or videos from inside were released. The former employee of the center also leaked photos to MSNBC which show mostly young children sitting around at a table for meals and sitting on a classroom floor.

The former employee who leaked the videos told MSNBC that she quit a week before leaking the footage. In a statement provided to MSNBC the woman said "I am here today because I feel like it's important to make a difference. I feel that it's time for everybody to stand up and to stop being afraid and actually help these children that are being separated from their parents." The woman also described the situation at the center as "heartbreaking" in her statement.

The woman also told MSNBC that as a teacher at the Cayuga Centers she was not allowed to ask children questions about their immigration situations and were only allowed to ask if they wanted to speak to their case workers if anything was wrong.

See Rachel Maddow's report below. Video from the center begins around 7:30:

Several New York City officials held a press conference Friday praising Cayuga Centers for reuniting 100 migrant children with their family members in the United States. Of the 239 children taken to the facility, about 60 percent arrived at the border alone and 40 percent were separated from their families, Congressman Adriano Espaillat told reporters.

City Counilman Mark Levine stressed that the Cayuga Centers are "not complicit" in the separation of children from their families at the border and that people protesting the organization are "profoundly misguided."

"As long as kids are in New York City we need nonprofits like Cayuga to care for them," Levine said Friday.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that federal officials are still keeping city and state officials in the dark about the number of migrant children being sent from the southern border to New York. Local officials have counted about 300 such children who are currently in the care of three social services organizations in the city, de Blasio said Monday.

Photo by Ann Bryan/Patch