bryan llenas is reporting live from east harlem with more on the mayor's visit. bryan. >> we're waiting for the mayor to come out of the family center here in east harlem. we're expecting him to make some remarks. governor cuomo said some 100 children, aany as 300 children, have been placed throughout ten shelters here in the state of new york. they have traveled here and been separated from their parents at the border more than 1,000 miles away. bill de blasio came in about a half an hour ago into the center. he said he has no words for what this kind of act is and he promised to do more about it, this is video from spectrum news new york 1. it shows five young girls being brought into the center here in east harlem at 12:45 a.m. this is a foster center that places children with families, a woman said they were not children being separated by their families. an hour later, they were escorted out with their heads covered with a jacket. the ceo tells gothamist website that his shelters and others couldn't confirm that they were holding children separated from thei

images of these young girls late at night last night, being moved into and out of a facility in east harlem in new york city. new york governor andrew cuomo later confirmed that the girls, who were spotted at th facility in new york city, these girls are among the kids who the trump administration has taken from their parents. they took them off the southern border and brought these little girls all the way to new york. new york city mayor bill de blasio later confirmed today in a press conference outside the facility that there were, in fact, 239 girls being held inside there, the youngest, 9 months old. held alone, away from their parents. but, again, that reporter from that new york 1 story, which is how we learned that 239 of these little girls are being held alone in east harlem, he thanked his confidential sources for the tip. right? that that's where the girls were. the tip that led to those images and that footage and that reportireport i inging, and now that attention and confirmation from public officials. and then there's "the new york times" as well granting anonymity to some un

yesterday for migrant children being detained only a few miles from where i sit right now, right up in east harlem, new york. throughout my tour of the suffering caused by this policy, i was consumed with several emotions. i keep hearing this administration saying, they're coming forth with a plan to reunite the kids with their parents after the president be la latedly signed an executive order. what do you mean you're coming with a plan? you never had a plan from the beginning, so you never intended to reunite these young children with their parents. and if you did have that plan, then why don't you just use that plan now? and if you didn't have that plan, what did you think they were, just collateral damage to your political conquest to look tough at the border? that's where i start today. joining me now is democrat of new york congressman haquin jeffries who visited a facility in texas this week. i went to texas to see these children, and i hear they're developing a plan which says to me they never had a plan. and if they never had a plan, they had just decided they were going to break up peopl

about, the ones who are in new york city that were brought to new york city in that shelter, in east harlemre children that came across that were unaccompanied minors when they came across? in other words they crossed the border alone versus kids that were actually separated after they crossed the border from their rents? do you have that breakdown? >> i do. and it shocked me. 239 kids separated under the new policy this family separation policy just from the last couple of months. 239 who were with their parents la few weeks were taken from their parents, sent to new york city. none of them were folks -- you know, kids who came up here on their own. they were all taken from their parents just because of this new policy. again, they don't know when they'll see their parents again. >> mayor, you talked about the importance you believe of public officials of coming in an seeing the facilities for themselves. the department of homeland security, others, there will be the criticism from those who say this is a political stunt essentially. how do you respond to that criticism? >> hallie, this is

captured this exclusive footage of young migrant girls being moved into and out of a facility in east harlem here in manhattan. it sparked a backlash from new york's elected officials. and then there is the headline exclusively reported by msnbc's rachel maddow. the department of justice is now enlistg active duty military lawyers sending them to at least six border cities torocute migrants. that as the administration looks to prosecute more and more iindividuals. s just the latest headline caption off what's been a relentless several days of nras co as the public and lawmakers stand steadfastly against the administration's controversial separation licy. and a handful of airlines including american and united now tell the federal government not to use their carriers for the transport of those migrant children. and more and more governors are standing up agast the administration. nbc's jay gray has more. >> reporter: president trump. >> i will never sacrifice the safety and security of the american people. >> we love you. >> reporter: doubling down on the zero tolerance administration policy

it is very clear as we watch reports come in from michigan, a report last night from east harlem in new york city, reports in california. what is happening is, each bureaucracy -- the i.c.e. bureaucracy, the doj federal prison bureaucracy, are essentially looking at a spread sheet and says where there are open beds to put people, then dispersing them to the four winds. there are moms currently in a federal prison in washington state. there are kids taken from their parents who have been sent to michigan and to new york. you now have this population dispersed across three different federal bureaucracies -- doj, dhs and hhs, and across the entirety of the continental u.s. and now the work begins to get those people matched with the right parents and get them into the same place. >> it is interesting because the other day when kirstjen nielsen was asked where are the girls? where are the girls being held? have you seen them? she didn't really have any information on this. so that meant that dhs was not talking to hhs on this. there was also reports a few weeks ago -- about a month ago abou

you have visited one of these centers in east harlem, here in new york, which is not next to texas, mindou. >> yes, sir. >> where 2,000 children have been separated from their parents. >> i saw some of the children and i met some of the foster care parents. you know, these kids are very resilient. they have probably gone through a lot. as such, they still are able to give you a little smile. but i can't imagine that they're not traumatized not knowing where their parents are. >> they don't know where their parents are? >> they don't know where their parents are. although that center has been able to reunite 100 of them back with their parents. for the most part, most children are still apart from their parents. some of them have been deported back to their children and their childr back to their country and their children are here. this is the american nightmare. >> the white house told us over the weekend there is a process in place to get the children reunited with their parents. do the kids see it? do they even understand it? >> they don't understand it. some of them come with a littl

local news channel spectrum news ny1 shows five girls being ushered into a foster care facility in east harlem run by cayuga centers just before 1:00 a.m. an hour later, several girls were filmed leaving the facility with their heads covered, as they were ushered into a car. the video prompted outrage from new york mayor bill de blasio, who questioned how the federal government could be holding separated children without telling city officials. >> stop this right now. stop this row can come inhumane policy right now. come clean with the truth. who are these children? how many are they? where are they? how is it possible that none of us knew there were 239 kids right here in our own city? how is the federal government holding back that information from the people of this city? meanwhile, a new investigation by reveal shows taxpayers have paid more than $1.5 billion in the last four years to companies operating immigrant youth shelters that faced accusations of serious lapses in care. in a number of the cases, the goveme kept placing children with the companies even after serious allegations had

park avenue in east harlem. it's dark and doesn't look like there's anyone around. we're waiting around and after midnight, shortly before 1:00, a car pulls up and a bunch of young girls come out and it was extremely mysterious. i think the importance of it is not that just that people recognize that this is happening but i think this is really the first time that we, as nation, have understood this isn't just a problem that is on the southern border. this is in other places. >> could you glean from being there how the treatment was, how the young women, young girls were doing? did they seem confused, upset? had they figured how go along with it? >> they seemed resigned. it was pretty astoundinastoundi. they were 7, 8, 9 years old. tt it's the middle of the night. they were out. that were with some chap roeron. they were put into a car afterwards. they went inside to this facility for about an hour and emerged covered so as to conceal their identity. >> we're looking at some of that. one can understand why that measure may be taken as they are loaded into this car b

licensed foster families and attending a school during the day and they go through cayuga center in east harlem. but there's so much we don't know. we don't know exactly where they're staying. we don't node -- we don't know how they're being cared for in terms of any medical conditions, health conditions they may have as a result of this horrific separation. >> why don't we know? i know the mayor tried to get to the facility in harlem last night? it just in -- i was just in texas and we couldn't have access to anything. that has my concerned. >> not one of us is satisfied with the information we have received which is really no information about where these children really belong, where their parents are. we just don't know. government leaders should not be in the business of separating children from their parents this way. we know every parent, every expert, every health care professional knows that this can irreparable harm to these children. >> now we though they're separated and they're in the facilities in new york city, are we able the get inside? are we able to know which kids are there?

why i went to visit those fathers in new york and i went to visit some of those children here in east harlem in new york, we have over 200 children there who have been separated from their families, have been flown from texas, from arizona, from california, thousands of miles and now they're in new york city, they're doing a tremendous job there, i think that they're trying the best way they can to connect them with their family members, but it's just so hard to do so. so this administration has really wreaked havoc on the american public. >> did you have a chance to speak to some of those children in that detention center and what was your take away? >> these children have some level of resilience in them, but obviously they must be traumatized, they have been spli split from their parents, and some of them have six or seven children, it's not just about taking care of them, they're really invested. new yorkers have stepped up to provide help for these children, i'm proud of new york and i'm proud of this country, it's because of the american people that the trump administration has pulled

last night, new york 1 seemed to capture some young girls being taken to a foster care facility in east harlem, new york. do you know the number of children taken from their parents currently in the state of new york and what are you going to do as governor since s isn't going to do it, what are you going to doing to reunite them with their families. >> there already had 300 best we can determine all under federal jurisdiction. it's so bad, chris, we wanted to send doctors, mental health professionals, counselors, et cetera because just imagine the trauma these children have suffered. it can scar them the rest of their lives. we offered to send state resources to help the children. the federal government said you have to go through an application process that's going to take two weeks. they don't even want to tell the state how many and in what facilities. that's why we started the lawsuit which is the federal government violated the due process rights of the children and the parents. by the federal constitution, citizens and noncitizens undocumented people still have a fundamental right to be

i should tell you that the cayuga center in east harlem, new york city where this footage was shot is not the facility that is separating kids from their parents. the people who are working here with these kids are not responsible for having taken the kids away. they're receiving kids who have already been taken away from their parents or who are alone for other reasons. kids are not staying overnight at this facility. the way it works with this one is they come there every day for day programs and services and then they sleep at foster homes at night. but they're back there pretty much all day every day. the worker who shot this footage and provided it to us is critical of the amount of staffing at this facility saying that since the number of kids held in this facility has spiked, especially since the number of little kids in this facility has spiked since the trump administration started taking kids away from their parents, she says that the case management and medical staffing and the number of teachers and trainers at that facility has not kept up with the increasingly crowded co

was saying, the mayor of new york, there are 239 kids sent from south texas here to this city, to east harlem shelters and were only caught because somebody put that on new york one in the middle of the night. the fact you can take kids away from their parents and disperse them not only 2,000 miles away but to 13 different states, i think reportedly, there are 17 different states with these shelters, 100 potential different shelters, and not really have a way to -- i mean, you can track your fedex package down to the second and know where it is and we don't know where 2,000 young human beings are in this country and if their parents will ever see them again? i think that it's a despicable state of affairs when it comes to how this was all handled. >> jacob, thank you very much. thanks for the reporting. jacob soboroff reporting from new york. you can watch his special date line report, the dividing line tomorrow night on nbc at 7:00 eastern time. >>> dinner plans next. why white house senior adviser stephen miller's restaurant selection is angering so many people. >>> las vegas, nevada, the p

the flights but nonetheless, more than 200 kids have already landed at a shelter in new york's east harlem. jason carroll is there, as well. he joins us now. is there an indication of people running this facility that they've been given any kind of guidance as to what happens to these kids now? >> reporter: well, look. in the short term, what's going to happen to these children, anderson, they're going to stay with their foster families. they will go home at night. stay with their foster families. come back to facilities like this one, the cuyahoga senter in the day. long term there's no answer, no plan in place in terms of what will happen to the 239 children and babies, some as young as 9 months old, that are being housed at this particular facility. even tonight the deputy mayor of health and human services here in new york city said her office has received no plan from the federal government in terms of what to do with these 239 children. this is an issue, a problem that's facing not just the children at facilities at this one here in new york but throughout the country. anderson? >> s

here in new york city, they received a tip about some girls being transported to a facility in east harlemre in time, see the girls being transferred. it's another example of an attempt to try and see what's going on. after the video was taken, local authorities spoke out. mayor de blasio reported, revealed a couple hundred were in new york city as a result of these detentions, one of them a 9-month-old. i don't think the journalists are going to stop covering the story until they know where these boys and girls are. >> mayor de blasio was outraged at what he saw with some of the kids in harlem and also apparently the city government didn't know there was a 9-month-old and young kids separated at the border and transported up here. >> it's appalling. because there's so much constant lying going on by political employees and misstatements by the president, it makes it harder to trust government agencies when they're handing out certain photos, when they're denying access. this continues to be an issue. we need more sun looilight. >> sunlight, the word of the week. >>> a 17-year-old boy shot

mentioned new york 1, a local television station in new york found kids being transferred to an east harlem facility in the milled of the night last night. buffalo, in chicago. we have women detained away from their kids in washington state in federal prison. there are facilities outside tucs tucson. there were facilities in california in irvine. this is spread across the country. we are going to see if it can be implemented. we saw with you the muslim travel ban and we have seen it is the directive getting out ahead of the logistical capacity of the agencies charged with implementing them. now the hhs and dhs is off the hook to find ids beds. they still have unaccompanied minor but the population should go down. now they have to get to work finding all the children, locating their parents and linking them back together. that is not a small task. from my initial scan of the executive order i didn't see any specific direction. jacob, unless you did. >> no. something that occurred to me, if the administration doesn't get an exemption from the floors settlement, they basically have 20 days to

some of the kids last week, a group of kids primarily from guatemala who were in a classroom in east harlem30 or 40 kids. and now what we have learned in the course of the last few days is there's around 300 kids in new york city. no word on when they'll be reunited with their families. >> that's remarkable. 300 children. they've all come up from -- were they flown up from the boarder? >> some were flown up, some were put on a bus with a civilian escort -- >> who's not allowed to touch them. >> and they've gone 2,000 miles. >> a lot of them don't even speak spanish. >> well, the escorts i can't speak to but the kids don't speak english and they are in the middle of something they don't understand. here's what one of the folks who is helping them here in new york said to me. it was very poignant. i said what's the protocol for getting them in touch with their parents? they said well it depends. some kids have a phone numb we are in a note in their pocket and if they have a phone number maybe we can reach them but a lot of kids are too young, don't know the phone number, don't know anything a

>> and taken to a foster center in east harlem, new york. >> is that possible?going to continue to report on it. >> the other thing s bottom of,y impression and understanding of the policy, children under 4 should not be separated from their parents. apparently that's happening. that will be interesting reporting to come. >> i'm going to continue with this because it's staggering. we do have to make sure we're really, really cool on the facts. and i want to follow up on that new york one report. >>> a report overnight from the associated press, attempts to answer a question that the trump administration has dodged for the last few days. where are the girls? where are the young toddlers among migrant children separated from their families at the border? the ap reports that babies and other young children are being sent to at least three tender age shelters in south texas. that's what they're calling them. according to the ap, lawyers and medical providers who have visited the rio grand valley shelters described playrooms of crying preschool age children in crisis

babies as young as 9 months old are being held in my district in east harlem away from their moms. if republicans are serious about families, we should pass this motion to recommit and the keep the families together act. this act is simple. it will protect immigrant children from government sponsored abuse. it will keep us in compliance for more than 20 days. it also is in line with preliminary preliminary injunction which requires that children younger than 5 years old be returned to their parents within 14 days. and older children be returned within 30 days. mr. speaker, show some basic compassion for these young children, their brothers and sisters and their parents. every single member of congress should be able to stand behind the simple idea that families, regardless of where they come from, belong together. the separation of children from their families constitutes child abuse. mr. speaker, we need to finally ct and be a country of aspirations. will we step up to be a country that allows me as a young boy to find safety next to my mother and father? mr. speaker, i -- the spe

centro kayuga en ista harlan, es uno de los centros que recibe fondos del gobierno federal-- en east harlem esta maÑana con algunos vecinos del Área que tienen su reacciÓn y quieren expresar sus sentimientos al respecto. quÉ piensa usted sobre esta decisiÓn de donald trump de retractarse y anular esta polÍtica de separaciÓn de familias? >> primero que nada, gracias a dios que desistiÓ de ser lo que estaba haciendo y, pues, es muy doloroso mirar lo que estÁ pasando. pues, quisiÉramos saber, verdad, quÉ va a pasar con los demÁs niÑos porque aquÍ solamente trajeron una parte de niÑos, son como 200, como usted mencionÓ, pero dónde estÁ los demÁs niÑos? birmania: sÍ, que tenemos esta seÑora que estaba mirando con cara de tristeza esto niÑos que han entrado aquÍ. tambiÉn me estaba diciendo anteriormente lo que le provocaba el ver la reacciÓn de estos niÑos llorando en la televisiÓn. digamos ser, cuÁl es su opiniÓn? >> destroza el corazÓn de ver la separaciÓn de esos niÑos que son separados de sus padres. yo no me imagino que cuando yo tenÍa mis niÑos chicos me separaron de ellos. eso es muy trist

at the center of east harlem, a young boy named eddy, he fled a violent situation, taken from his mom a bus with a federal escort sent to new york city. no sense, at all, for him when he is going to see his mom again. this is happening in this country how un-american. how are tax dollars going to separate mothers from children and not a semblance of accountability of when it ends. no, we were never told there were kids in our city. i found out by going to the center directly, sitting down with social service professionals trying to help the kids. it blew me away. i said how many are here because of the policy in may? with absolute straight forward, they looked me in the eye, said 239 kids, at that moment, were in that center. that's one of three centers in new york city. now, what we are seeing around the country is, i talked to my fellow mayors, republican and democrat, they are finding what they thought was they had no kids, turns out they have dozens. they have hundreds. none of us have been given the facts. we are demanding of the federal government, lay out where the kids are, th

babies as young as 9 months old are being held in my district in east harlem away from their moms. if republicans are serious about families, we should pass this motion to recommit and the keep the families together act. this act is simple. it will protect immigrant children from government sponsored abuse. it will keep us in compliance for more than 20 days. it also is in line with preliminary preliminary injunction which requires that children younger than 5 years old be returned to their parents within 14 days. and older children be returned within 30 days. mr. speaker, show some basic compassion for these young children, their brothers and sisters and their parents. every single member of congress should be able to stand behind the simple idea that families, regardless of where they come from, belong together. the separation of children from their families constitutes child abuse. mr. speaker, we need to finally ct and be a country of aspirations. will we step up to be a country that allows me as a young boy to find safety next to my mother and father? mr. speaker, i -- the spe