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Governor Says New York Will Try To Serve Separated Immigrant Children

A police officer stands guard while children hide their faces as they are escorted as they leave the Cayuga Centers facility, Thursday, June 21, 2018, in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says he learned on Wednesday that hundreds of migrant children separated from their parents by federal immigration officials are being cared for in the facility. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

ALBANY, NY (WSKG) - Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced steps that New York officials will take to help detained immigrant children separated from their families, but he said he isn’t getting a lot of details from the federal government.

Cuomo said state agencies will be providing support services, including health and mental health services, for immigrant children discharged from detention into a family member’s care.

“Whatever they need,” Cuomo said. “Legal services, educational services, counseling.”

It’s estimated that 700 of the children separated from their parents under President Donald Trump's immigration policy were sent to private foster care services in New York that contract with the federal government.

The governor said his lawyers will contact other countries where the children are from to try to find ways to reunite them with their parents.

Cuomo said he’s asking the federal department of Health and Human Services to tell him when children from other states are discharged to families or foster care in New York, but so far, they have not supplied that information.

Cuomo also derided Trump’s comments on Twitter saying that people should “simply be stopped at the border and told they cannot come to the U.S.” without due process for immigrants. Cuomo said that’s clearly against the U.S. Constitution.