New York – New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio learned Wednesday that 239 migrant children separated from their parents by federal immigration officials are being cared for in Harlem.
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Speaking after a tour of the Cayuga Center, the Democratic mayor said that among the children was a 9-year-old boy from Honduras, named Edie, who had been sent 2,000 miles to the facility on a bus after being stopped trying to enter the U.S. at the southern border.
The youngest of the children sent to the center so far was 9 months old, de Blasio said. He said he didn’t know until Wednesday morning that such large numbers of children taken from their parents were being brought to New York.
The Cayuga Center, which has classrooms in a six-story building across the street from an elevated train line, has a federal contract to place unaccompanied immigrant children in short-term foster care. Officials at the center did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.
De Blasio said the staff there told him it has taken in about 350 children since President Donald Trump’s administration implemented its “zero tolerance” policy this spring calling for the criminal prosecution of all adults caught crossing the border illegally.
The mayor said he visited a classroom where about 40 children, mostly from Guatemala, were working with three teachers.
“It looked like the kids were being treated very well,” the mayor said, although he said a number of the children arrived with physical problems, including lice, bed bugs and chicken pox.
De Blasio called the Republican president’s immigration policies inhumane, but praised the staff at the Cayuga Center.
“There have been threats directed against the people who work here. That is very wrong and inappropriate,” de Blasio said. “They didn’t create the policy. They are trying, as professionals, to help these kids in distress.”
The Angel of Deportation executive order doesn’t reunite over 2,300 children with their families. Cruel and corrupt policy DENIED by the voices of the American people. Time to reunite the 2300 NOW!
DiBlasio is so busy parading for his future presidential run, he never knows what is going on in NYC. I di dnot see any comment, let alone a visit to the near tragic subway incident today. he was preparing for a flight to Texas to make noise against President Trump.
My Parents and their peers would have been delighted to be let into safety even apart from family, in order to avoid Aushwitz.. The screams of those taken to Auschwitz were never on TV.
The whole thing is backwards. The parents know that their kids wont go to prison, so hey smuggle them in. If they are not caught, then they make their life in America as illegal immigrants. If they are caught, then they go to prison, but their kids are already in, get free accommodations, schooling, medical care etc. Even if it is not a permanent solution, they are still better off than before. They should just send them all back across the boarder as a family to start with. Why are we making refugee camps for kids because they did something wrong?