NYC Officials Step In To Help Separated Immigrant Kids

NEW YORK, NY — New York City agencies are offering legal help, health care and other services to aid the estimated 300 immigrant children brought here from the southern U.S. border, officials said Tuesday. The city will support the kids — who were separated from their parents under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy toward illegal border crossings — while they're in the care of local federally contracted nonprofit agencies, officials said.

"They’re resilient, but they’re also frightened, confused, and in some cases clearly traumatized," said David A. Hansell, the commissioner of the city's Administration for Children's Services (ACS), in a statement. "While these children are under the care and legal responsibility of the federal government, they are in New York City now and we are doing everything in our power to make sure they are safe and healthy."

The group of kids brought to the city ranges in age from infants to teenagers, Hansell said. They are considered "unaccompanied alien children" in the custody of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, which works to find family sponsors who can take in the children.

The nonprofits provide them health care, education and recreation during the day, and many are living in foster homes, according to ACS.

City agencies have stepped in to provide extra help, including training for nonprofit staff and foster parents on how to support children who have been through severe trauma.

The city also provides "parenting coaching" for teen mothers who are caring for infants while separated from their adult parents, ACS said.

The children can get health care at the city's public hospitals and help connecting them and their potential sponsors with legal services, officials said. They also get art supplies, toys and weekly field trips to destinations including museums and zoos.

The services are "open-ended" because it's uncertain how long the kids will be in the city, according to an ACS press release.

The Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs is coordinating the response by several city agencies, including ACS, NYC Health + Hospitals, and the departments of Parks and Recreation, Cultural Affairs and Health and Mental Hygiene.

"The City stepped up to support children who were separated from their parents, while the Trump Administration tried to keep us in the dark," Sonia Lin, the general counsel and policy director for the Office of Immigrant Affairs, said in a statement.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has criticized the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for remaining tight-lipped about how many kids are in New York City and the federal government's plan to reunite them with their parents.

President Donald Trump signed a June 20 executive order purporting to stop the separations, and a federal judge last week ordered the government to reunite all the families within 30 days. But it's unclear whether or how that will happen.

HHS officials have said they are working to vet the detained parents as a potential sponsor with the goal of reuniting them with their kids. Hansell, though, reportedly said no children brought to the city have been reunited with their parents through the federal government.

One Guatemalan mother was able to see her two children in East Harlem for the first time in more than a month on Tuesday, but reportedly couldn't take them home with her.

The separation policy has sparked a lawsuit in which state Attorney General Barbara Underwood and 17 other attorneys general asked a Seattle federal court to force the Trump administration to reunite the families.

(Lead image: Mayor Bill de Blasio visits an East Harlem facility caring for separated immigrant children on June 20, 2018. Photo by Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)