Four Weeks After Judge's Deadline, Numerous Migrant Children Remain in New York

Thursday will mark four weeks since a court-imposed deadline for the government to reunite more than 2,500 migrant children taken from their parents at the southern border. Nationally, 565 children were still waiting to be returned to their parents, according to a status update last week. Another update is expected this Friday.

Most of the roughly 300 kids who were sent to New York have been returned to their parents, according to legal service providers representing the children. But not all, and it's difficult to get a firm count.

Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), the Legal Aid Society and The Door told WNYC they are representing a total of 30 migrant children who remain in New York and have not yet been reunited with their parents. Eighteen of those children are KIND clients staying at Cayuga Centers. Catholic Charities and Safe Passage Project did not give out a number. Catholic Charities declines to discuss specifics, citing the confidentiality of its clients.

WNYC's count of at least 30 is lower than the minimum of 52 we tallied three weeks ago.

The providers said the children who remain in New York are here because their parents were either deemed "ineligible" by the government for reunification, or because they were already deported.

Beth Krause, supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society's Immigrant Youth Project, said her office started with about 70 clients and now has just four left in New York. Three are unable to be reunited because their parents are in criminal custody, she said. Their lawyers are seeking relatives to act as sponsors to keep them in the U.S. Another 9-year-old boy and his family are debating whether to find a sponsor in the U.S. or to have him return to Guatemala, where his father was already deported.

"It's been difficult to ascertain his position in terms of what he wants to do, and his parents have likewise fluctuated in what they would like to happen for him," Krause said. If they can find a sponsor, she said, the family would like the child to stay in the U.S. Sponsors are usually family members.

But Krause said another case was especially frustrating — a 6-year-old boy from Guatemala who was only returned to his mother last week in the U.S.

"Despite our repeated efforts to learn information about why this child had not been reunified we were given no information," she said. Legal Aid only knew that the mother was in detention in Texas. The boy was sent to her last week and she was released from detention, said Krause.

Attorneys with The Door shared their own frustrations about dealing with the government, several weeks ago with WNYC. On Wednesday, the legal service provider said it now has just six clients left in New York, four of whom are seeking sponsors because their parents were already deported. Another child got an immigration judge to grant voluntary departure, and the last is expected to be reunited this week.

Even though some of the migrant children have been in New York since the spring, staying either with foster families or in dormitory-style settings, it's not expected that any will enroll in New York City schools next month. The Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs said the children are still in federal custody, and they receive educational services through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (O.R.R.). If they stay in federal custody for more than four months, they can be transferred to the agency's long-term foster care program, and enrolled in local schools.

Meanwhile, the federal government has been ordered to look for hundreds of parents who were deported while their children remained int he U.S. The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the Trump administration over its family separation the policy, is helping the federal agencies locate the parents.

Children whose parents are still in detention have difficult choices. The California judge presiding over the lawsuit has said they can stay in family detention with their parents, if they waive their rights to be released within the 20 day limit for children. Or the parents can let their children leave detention to stay with sponsors.