REUNITED
Twelve migrant kids in city back together with parents
Around 350 children who were separated from their parents at the border have been brought to New York City — but only about 12 have been reunified with their parents following a federal court order, agencies caring for those children said Thursday.
Representatives of three social service providers caring for the children in the city — Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services and Cayuga Centers — testified to the City Council, describing a chaotic effort by the federal government to comply with a court-ordered deadline to return children under 5 to their parents.
“There is no plan,” Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, said. “We want the families reunited as soon as possible, but we want a plan.”
The roughly 12 children returned to their parents account for half of the roughly 24 children under 5 years old the agencies have helped, said Mario Russell, director of Catholic Charities New York’s Immigrant & Refugee Services Division.
As for the other 12 children, Russell referred to a federal statement that outlined why it found some children under the age of 5 ineligible to be reunited with their parents.
“There’s two issues: One is danger or safety, or reunification is not possible because the parent is in custody or the parent is abroad,” Russell said.
Nationwide, 22 children have been found ineligible due to safety concerns posed by the adult in question, according to a joint statement from Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and the Justice Department. Another 12 are ineligible because their parent has been deported already; another nine because their parent is in U.S. Marshals custody for another offense; two because the parent is is a state jail for another offense; and one because the location of the parent has been unknown for more than a year.
Officials from the agencies described a whirlwind situation when it came to reuniting the children in the city. Russell said Catholic Charities, which provides legal services, gets a notification that a reunification is about to happen or has just happened.
“Then we send our team of social workers to meet with the families that have been reunified and we work with them to assess their needs on what their next steps are, what is the next leg of their journey,” Russell said, including finding the families a place to stay.