Wall Street Journal
By Melanie Grayce West and Katie Honan
June 21, 2018
After traveling thousands of miles to New York from the U.S.-Mexico border, some of the migrant children put in foster care have suffered from anxiety and depression, doctors said.
On Thursday, a picture emerged of the lives of the roughly 700 children who have arrived in New York in recent weeks after being separated from a parent at border crossings. Many are in foster care with limited access to contacting relatives.
At least 12 children—some as young as 5—who were brought to New York City have been treated during the last two months at Bellevue and North Central Bronx hospitals, said Mitchell Katz, chief executive of the city’s hospital system.
Most arrived without medical records, and have been treated for asthma, constipation, and signs of trauma and depression, he said. One teenager had suicidal thoughts after being separated from his mother, Dr. Katz said.
Daran Kaufman, director of pediatric emergency services at North Central Bronx Hospital, said at a news conference Thursday that her clinicians treated eight children with medical and stress-related medical issues during the last few weeks. “They are sad, despondent, and we are unable to treat the emotional scars they are presented with,” she said.
Bitta Mostofi, the city’s commissioner of immigrant affairs, said officials are working to connect service providers and families with lawyers to find ways to have the children speak to a relative. They are concerned that there isn’t a pathway to reunite families yet.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration implemented a “zero-tolerance” immigration policy that resulted in the separation of children and relatives at the U.S.-Mexican border. On Wednesday President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing officials to try to detain asylum-seeking families together.
“Even with this executive order, there’s no single thing that speaks to the process in which there will be reunification of parents with their children,” Ms. Mostofi said.
At a Wednesday evening meeting at Cayuga Centers, one of 10 nonprofits in New York state that have contracted with the federal government for the care of the migrant children, prospective foster parents learned more about how minors are arriving in the state and the care they can receive.
Cayuga Centers staff members meet the children at the airport to interview them and screen for injuries, trauma, age and determine their situation, according to a person who attended the informational session.
Most children are from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Foster parents aren’t supposed to talk to children about their experience, and they aren’t permitted to discipline a child, or force them to do anything, including take a bath, the person said. Foster children aren’t allowed to use a foster parent’s phone, tablet or computer; the children only may do so at Cayuga Centers, this person said. Cayuga Centers officials didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
On Thursday, the latest estimate of how many of these migrant children are in New York rose again to at least 700, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Neither Mr. Cuomo nor New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, both Democrats, have been told by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services how many children have been brought to the state, they say. Messrs. Cuomo and de Blasio said on Thursday that more children arrived in New York on Wednesday night.
Individual organizations that have contracted with the federal government to provide services and housing for separated or unaccompanied migrant children throughout New York have been gagged from sharing information on the number and location of the children, Mr. Cuomo said.
The organizations also have been prohibited by HHS from accepting offers of help—mental-health care or medical care—from the state, he said.
“I have the legal right to know where the children are because I have the legal responsibility for the health and welfare of the children,” Mr. Cuomo said during a Thursday phone call with reporters.
A spokeswoman for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an arm of the federal Administration for Children and Families, didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.
Gov. Cuomo said the social-service groups his office has been in contact with say that the federal government “has also been shuffling children from agency-to-agency which makes it even harder to track.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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