More Than 200 Immigrant Kids Separated From Families Are In NYC

NEW YORK, NY — More than 200 immigrant children separated from their parents at the southern U.S. border are currently in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday. The 239 kids are among more than 350 who have been brought to just one East Harlem facility under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy toward illegal border crossings, the mayor said.

"This has been a traumatic process for a lot of these kids," de Blasio, a Democrat, said after visiting the facility. "The mental health issues alone ... are very real, very painful."

The mayor revealed the information after meeting with staff at the Cayuga Centers facility, where the children attend classes during the day before returning to the foster homes where they're staying.

The visit came just before President Donald Trump signed an executive order, after days of public outrage, to stop separating familes at the border and detain them together instead.

NY1 recorded a group of five girls being ushered into the Park Avenue building early Wednesday morning. The youngest of the kids brought there is nine months old, de Blasio said. Some have arrived with chicken pox, bed bugs, lice and other physical consequences of their detention, he said.

De Blasio recounted the story of a 9-year-old boy named Eddie, who was separated from his mother and sent to East Harlem after they crossed the border seeking asylum from Honduras.

The mayor said he spoke with the boy's aunt. His family "can’t see him and they don’t know what’s going on with him and they don’t know what his future is," de Blasio said.

There are nearly 300 children in New York State who were taken from their families as a result of the federal policy, according to a New York Civil Liberties Union estimate. State officials have confirmed the presence of about 100 after initially finding more than 70, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday.

Two organizations in the Bronx, Catholic Guardian Services and Lutheran Social Services of New York, are also caring for some of the kids, Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said.

"They are not in prisons," Diaz Jr., a Democrat, said in a statement. "They are going to school, receiving medical and counseling services, and are afforded legal representation in immigration court where appropriate."

City officials have not gotten any information directly from the federal government even as authorities have sent hundreds of children thousands of miles to New York, de Blasio said.

"Clearly this information was not provided on purpose and we had to go search for it," he said.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the "zero tolerance" policy in April, calling for the prosecution of anyone caught entering the U.S. illegally. Federal authorities reportedly separated more than 2,300 kids from their families as a result, with images broadcast on TV showing some held in a cage at a Texas facility.

Federal authorities consider the kids to be "unaccompanied alien children," putting them under the jurisdiction of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the office, has not confirmed the number of kids in New York or where they are, citing privacy concerns. The department operates more than 100 shelters in 17 states, a spokeswoman said in an email.

Cuomo called the separations a "colossal organizational failure" that has created "chaos" and "mayhem."

"They had no plan or accommodations for separating the children and that's why you see the picture of them in cages and kennels and shipped all across the country," Cuomo, a Democrat, said on MSNBC.

Watch Mayor Bill de Blasio address the media outside the East Harlem facility.

(Lead image: Mayor Bill de Blasio visited this Cayuga Centers facility in East Harlem, which is serving some immigrant kids separated from their families. Photo by Ann Bryan/Patch)