Gov. Cuomo says he’ll sue after 70 immigrant children separated from parents at border are sent to New York
Gov. Cuomo will sue the federal government over its policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the southern border, as more than 70 of those children have wound up in facilities in New York state, including three in the Bronx.
“There’s been a lot of talk about the morality of this practice but we also believe that this practice is illegal and we are intending to bring suit against the federal government,” Cuomo said on a conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon.
Cuomo said the children are being held in private facilities that are contracted by the federal government to provide services to unaccompanied alien children — minors who cross the border alone and who the Office of Refugee Resettlement temporarily houses while seeking family sponsors.
Cuomo said that while the state has oversight of the facilities, they have been told they cannot provide services to the children in them without approval from the Department of Health and Human Services, which he said told the state would take weeks.
As for the suit, Cuomo said he intends to bring it in the next two weeks and that it would be based on three legal theories.
“First that it’s a violation of the constitutional rights of the parent to the care, custody and control of their children,” he said, and a violation of their due process as the children were removed without any hearings.
The second theory, he said, is the policy violates the terms of the 1997 Flores settlement that set national standards on the detention, release and treatment of children in immigration detention “and underscores the principle of family unity.”
And third, he said, “it is outrageous government conduct.”
Some of those children are being held at MercyFirst in Syosset, L.I., as reported Monday.
“We have about 10 facilities in the state. We haven’t spoken with all of them,” Cuomo said. “We know there are over 70 children just by the ones that we have talked about, but they are in Dobbs Ferry, Lincolndale, Yonkers, Irvington, three in the Bronx, one in Syosett and one in Kingston.”
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