Cuomo calls visit to facility with separated kids ‘troubling’
Some of the immigrant children being housed in New York foster care facilities after being separated from their parents at the southern border need psychological counseling for the traumatizing ordeal, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday, a day after visiting one of the agencies caring for some of the hundreds of displaced kids the federal government sent to the state.
The Democrat, who visited the foster care facility Thursday, wouldn’t divulge its name or location during interviews he gave afterward to CNN and NY1. Video of the governor’s visit released Friday by his office showed him speaking with two boys through a Spanish translator, with the faces of the youths and the translator blurred out.
Cuomo described the visit as “troubling” during the NY1 interview. He said the facility is housing children ages about 11 to 18, with some of them “in a state of shock” and requiring “serious significant psychological assistance.”
At least one child is known to be in Ulster County. Blanca Orantes-Lopez, a Salvadoran woman who’s being held at a federal prison near Seattle, told The Associated Press her 8-year-old son, Able Alexander, is at a facility in Kingston.
Reports that Abel is at a “children’s home” have fueled speculation that he’s at The Children’s Home of Kingston on Grove Street in the city, but representatives of that facility have declined to comment.
Cuomo is demanding federal authorities provide information on the estimated 700 immigrant children sent to foster care agencies in New York state after being separated from their parents. Earlier Friday, he told CNN’s “New Day” that it was “bizarre” that the federal Department of Health and Human Services doesn’t allow contracted foster care agencies to divulge information about the children to state authorities seeking to offer assistance.
“Why would you not want the state to help provide services, mental health services, counseling, reunification services at the state’s expense?” Cuomo said. “This is not the way it normally works.”
Cuomo said New York state is home to one of the largest foster care networks in the nation. State officials will visit more facilities where children separated from their parents are being held, he said.
Cuomo, considered a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, has been a frequent critic of Republican President Donald Trump’s policies, including his handling of the thousands of people who have been caught entering the U.S. illegally.
Cuomo said earlier this week that New York state will file a federal lawsuit against the federal government over Trump’s recently reversed “zero-tolerance” policy that separated immigrant children from their parents after being taken into custody.