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Cuomo says state will try to provide services to separated immigrant children

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.

Karen DeWitt is Capitol Bureau chief for the New York Public News Network, composed of a dozen newsrooms across the state. She has covered state government and politics for the network since 1990.