{"id":95558,"date":"2018-07-03T20:04:03","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T00:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=95558"},"modified":"2018-07-03T11:28:05","modified_gmt":"2018-07-03T15:28:05","slug":"underwood-files-new-victim-declarations-motion-for-expedited-discovery-in-family-separation-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=95558","title":{"rendered":"Underwood files new victim declarations, motion for expedited discovery in family separation case"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NYS Attorney General Barbara Underwood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Underwood files new victim declarations, motion for expedited discovery in family separation case<\/strong><\/p>\n

New declarations include stories of parents and children who were separated\u00a0\u2013\u00a0including a number of children who were taken to New York<\/p>\n

New York Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood \u2013 part of a coalition of 18 Attorneys General \u2013\u00a0asked a federal judge to order the federal government to provide details about and access to victims of the Trump administration’s family separation policy on an expedited schedule, part of a new filing in their lawsuit to block the policy.<\/p>\n

Attorneys General also filed a total of 99 declarations from individuals, organizations, agencies and experts impacted by the Trump administration’s policy, including from parents and children who were separated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is inhumane, unconscionable, and illegal to keep these children separated from their families,\u201d said\u00a0Attorney General Underwood. \u201cThe stories detailed in our case make clear the irreparable trauma being caused to these children\u00a0by the Trump administration\u2019s policy, which also continues to\u00a0harm New York\u2019s fundamental interests in protecting\u00a0families\u2019\u00a0health, safety, and wellbeing. This policy is unconstitutional and we will continue to do everything in our power to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The filing includes declarations reflecting the stories of parents and children who were separated; at least some of those children were taken to New York. That includes Edy, a nine-year-old boy from Honduras who was separated from his mother in May 2018; while Edy’s mother remained in federal custody in Texas, Edy was taken by bus to a federally-contracted program in New York City. It also includes Yolani Karina Padilla-Orellana, who was moved to a detention facility in Washington State while her son was transferred to a facility in New York.<\/p>\n

The declarations also include statements from New York state and city agencies, as well as Kids in Need of Defense, which has served children who were separated from their parents, and Robin Hood, which funds a number of early childhood development, immigration legal services, and nonprofit programs impacted by the policy.<\/p>\n

Click\u00a0here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>, and\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0to read the full declarations; a table of contents is\u00a0available here<\/a>.\u00a0Click here<\/a>\u00a0to read the motion for expedited discovery.<\/p>\n

As of last week, New York had confirmed that at least 321 children who have been separated from their parents at the southwestern border were residing in New York state, in the care of 11 different provider agencies. Staff at one voluntary agency informed local government officials that the ages of most children newly placed at their agency, many of whom were separated from family at the border, are between the ages of four and twelve. The youngest child\u00a0was a nine-month-old baby,\u00a0in addition to multiple not-yet-verbal toddlers.<\/p>\n

The children whom the Trump administration have separated from their parents and sent to New York are suffering extreme trauma. For example, a South American boy who was separated from his father at the Mexican border was rushed to the hospital because he was about to jump out of the second-story window of the group home where he was sent in early June after being forcibly separated from his family; the distraught child verbalized that he wanted to jump because he missed his parents. Twelve other\u00a0young immigrant children who were separated from their parents at the border have been treated for physical and mental illnesses at New York City hospitals.\u00a0One child was suicidal and others were treated for\u00a0depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n

The motion for expedited discovery filed by the Attorneys General today is necessary because hundreds of separated parents are in federal custody and the Administration can move them to other facilities at any time without notice. The motion asks the court to order the federal government to cooperate in facilitating access to detained parents and to report to the court on the progress of such efforts.<\/p>\n

If the judge grants the motion for expedited discovery, it will require the federal government to respond to the states\u2019 requests for information on an accelerated timeline and to cooperate with state requests to interview parents in federal detention. Some states have faced procedural difficulties or been denied access to federal detention centers and other federal locations that house affected immigrants.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was<\/a>\u00a0originally\u00a0filed\u00a0last week<\/a>\u00a0by the Attorneys General of Washington, Massachusetts, California, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies like Edy\u2019s deserve better than the Trump administration\u2019s inhumane and unconstitutional policy of separating a 9-year old from his mother,\u201d said\u00a0NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio. \u201cNew\u00a0York\u00a0City stands up for the well-being of the immigrants and refugees who have come to our City for a better life. I\u00a0have seen what is happening to these families up close, at the border\u00a0and in New York \u2013 and it must end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs one of the nation\u2019s largest poverty-fighting organizations, Robin Hood cannot be silent on this issue,\u201d said\u00a0Wes Moore, CEO of Robin Hood. \u201cThe damage brought on to children by this policy is so great and long-lasting that we are compelled to raise our voice \u2014 something we, as a philanthropy, don\u2019t always do on policy issues. Robin Hood fights poverty wherever it lives, investing $120 million per year, from supporting immigrant communities to focusing on early childhood development. We know just how detrimental to life and health separating refugee children from their families can be, and we must do everything in our power to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Through KIND’s work representing unaccompanied children in legal proceedings, and from what we have seen\u00a0recently\u00a0due to the Trump Administration’s new policies, it is evident that there is no consistent process for ensuring communication among separated children and their parents.\u00a0These separations, in addition to\u00a0inflicting\u00a0trauma, make it harder for children to access evidence and information from their parents that may support their eligibility for legal relief\u00a0and make it increasingly difficult to ensure that children receive adequate legal representation. We are proud to join the New York Attorney General’s Office\u00a0in support of State of Washington, et al. v. the United States of America to ensure that these children,\u00a0who\u00a0have\u00a0often\u00a0fled horrific violence, are not further traumatized by family separation,” said\u00a0Jennifer Podkul, Director of Policy at KIND.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Underwood files new victim declarations, motion for expedited discovery in family separation case New declarations include stories of parents and children who were separated\u00a0\u2013\u00a0including a number of children who were taken to New York New York Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood \u2013 part of a coalition of 18 Attorneys General \u2013\u00a0asked a federal judge to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23810,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellbeing","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=95558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/93740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}