For Separated Immigrant Kids In NYC, What Happens Now?

NEW YORK, NY — The arrival of hundreds of immigrant children separated from their families at the southern U.S. border has given New York City a role in a national crisis. But with a political mess surrounding them, what will happen to these kids who have found themselves in an unfamiliar place?

Expert say some may leave the country. Some may move in with a close or distant relative. Others may be left waiting to see what happens to their parents from whom they were taken.

The children face divergent and uncertain paths, service providers and advocates say, but their tough situations are exacerbated by the fact that they’re hundreds of miles from their families because of a hastily implemented policy.

“Lots, I think, of new and distinct challenges are presented by the policy itself and the choice to separate the kids from the parents,” said Bitta Mostofi, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.

As of June 26, the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, housed in the Department of Health and Human Services, had 2,047 kids in its custody who were separated from their parents as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy calling for the prosecution of anyone caught crossing the border illegally.

Estimates of the exact number in New York have varied, but recent reports show it’s more than 300. Many of the children have been to an East Harlem facility run by Cayuga Centers, one of three nonprofits in New York City with federal contracts to care for the kids.

There are more than 100 federally run facilities in 17 states nationwide where the Office of Refugee Resettlement, also known as ORR, sends “unaccompanied alien children,” which the separated kids are considered.

The ORR is required to provide the children with education, health care and other services while a case manager works to find potential family sponsors with whom they could be placed, according to federal officials.

“In particular we’ve worked closely with our partners at DHS” — the Department of Homeland Security — “to ensure that parents’ and children’s records are linked, and parents and children are able to communicate with each other as much as possible,” ORR Director Scott Lloyd told reporters on a conference call last week.

President Donald Trump signed a June 20 executive order purporting to end the separations, and a California federal judge on Tuesday reportedly ordered the federal government to reunite all families within 30 days. But the fate of the already separated kids remains uncertain.

“The big questions remain what they always have been: Where are they going to reunify them? What’s that going to look like? And are they going to be released, or will they be in detention together?” said Beth Krause, the supervising attorney of the Legal Aid Society’s Immigrant Youth Project.

Federal agencies are working to "facilitate the reunification of each child with their parents or family as soon as that is practical," Commander Jonathan White of HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response told reporters Tuesday before the federal court order was issued.

Some may be reunited with the parent from whom they were separated at the border, White said, while others may be placed with a parent or other family member in the U.S.

Each child housed in New York should be sent a notice to appear in immigration court, where they can make a case for legal status in the U.S., Krause said.

The nonprofit Catholic Charities contracts with the federal government to provide the kids with legal help, and Krause said Legal Aid is also handling some cases. A staffer at Catholic Charities did not respond to requests for an interview.

The kids in New York City face varying legal paths. Some may choose to return to their home countries through “voluntary departure” to reunite with parents who have already been deported, Krause said.

About a dozen children who have arrived in New York have chosen to be deported voluntarily, Mario Russell, the director of Catholic Charities New York's Immigrant & Refugee Services Division, told WNYC in a story published Thursday.

“Some kids who can communicate say I want now to be with mom and connection is made over the phone and everyone agrees that mom will go back and child will go back,” Russell told WNYC.

Some who feel afraid to return home may decide to make their own claims for legal status in the U.S. regardless of what happens to their parents, Krause said. Others’ cases will “rise and fall” with what happens to their parents who are detained hundreds of miles away, she said.

“Many of the children, as we understand it, are eager to reunite, so they’re not necessarily choosing a legal path because they want to see what happens with their parents,” Mostofi said.

For instance, Mostofi said her office has worked on the case of one boy with an aunt in the U.S. who could take him in as a sponsor, but his family wants him to be reunited with his detained mother. “It’s essentially meaning that he is at a limbo for a longer period of time,” Mostofi said.

The fact that their parents are detained is likely to make it harder for the kids to make a case for legal status in the U.S., Krause said.

Immigration cases for children, including asylum cases, require documents, timelines and other information that the separated kids may not know or understand on their own, Krause said. Parents could help provide that information if they’re back in their home country, she said, but it’s much harder when they’re locked up.

“For an 8- or 9-year-old to understand the gravity of threats or abuse or persecution that occurred to him or her, they just might not understand or be able to relate that to an attorney,” Krause said, “where the parent’s involvement in that sort of a case would be absolutely necessary, and having them detained makes that more difficult.”

Federal case managers look for family sponsors, such as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles or more distant relatives, with whom each child could stay, according to HHS officials. Each potential sponsor is vetted through an established process that includes a background check, verification of their relationship to the kid and a determination of whether they'd be a suitable sponsor, White said.

HHS is working to put all the detained parents through that vetting process with the goal of reuniting them with their kids, said Chris Meekins, the chief of staff for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.

But federal officials have reportedly said it will be difficult to follow the strict timeline of the federal court’s reunification order because of a 1997 court settlement restricting how long children can be detained.

“We’re not allowed to have a child be with the parent who is in custody of the Department of Homeland Security for more than 20 days,” Alex M. Azar II, the Health and Human Services secretary, said last week, according to The New York Times. “And so, until we can get Congress to change that law to — the forcible separation of the family units — we’ll hold them or place them with another family relative in the United States.”

The Trump administration is reportedly trying to amend the settlement and plans to detain families together while immigration proceedings are pending, meaning they could be held for months.

Advocates are also looking to Congress to end what some call the “horror” of family separations.

Lawyer Moms of America, a 16,000-member volunteer group formed just in the last few weeks, delivered letters last week to the offices of two dozen New York federal lawmakers calling for legislation requiring the reunification of families and stopping the detention of asylum seekers.

Only legislators can take permanent action to stop the policy “so that these laws cannot just be changed willy-nilly,” said Morghan Richardson, a Manhattan family law attorney who serves as a New York captain for Lawyer Moms.

“A court order is not necessarily comprehensive immigration reform,” Richardson said.

(Lead image: Yerlin Yessehia, 11, of Honduras waits with her family along the border bridge after being denied entry from Mexico into the U.S. on June 25, 2018 in Brownsville, Texas. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)