WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (WCBS 880) — Westchester County officials are pushing back against a New York Post article that claimed the Biden administration quietly flew undocumented minors from Texas to New York late at night.
The Post reported Tuesday that 21 charter flights have secretly picked up around 2,000 underage migrants and flown them to an airport outside of White Plains since Aug. 8.
From the airport, the Post reports that the children are then bused to various locations in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and on Long Island.
However, Westchester officials on Tuesday dismissed the report, saying that the situation is “nothing new.”
“This is similar to when HHS, under the Trump administration, housed almost 1,000 migrant children in Westchester, without the County’s prior knowledge or approval. Then, as opposed to now, there was no outcry by anyone,” said Catherine Cioffi, a spokesperson for County Executive George Latimer.
Cioffi added that the immigration situation was addressed in August and was reported on by “multiple media outlets.”
“The federal government flies unaccompanied children through airports all over the country to be unified with their parents or sponsor,” Cioffi said. “The County government has no ability to amend it, stop it or agree to it.”
Westchester County officials have been told that the children are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, if of eligible age, and all others receive negative tests prior to the flight.
“We repeat: all of this information was shared in August,” Cioffi said.
Many times, the children aboard the flights are transported to MercyFirst, in Syosset, where they are housed for about two months before being transferred to sponsor families.
Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi on Tuesday said there are about 50 minors living at the facility currently and stressed that none of them have been forced there in secrecy.
“There's no great influx of children here. It's the same steady pace it’s always typically been,” Suozzi said during a press conference.
Additionally, he said that any minor who has a known gang affiliation would never be housed at a facility like MercyFirst.
Suozzi said he does wish there was more transparency, however, about where the children will be moved to after they leave MercyFirst.
“We need information from the administration: Where are they sending these kids? So, the school districts could be prepared for the influx of the kids, and then we need to get the money to pay for it,” he said. “For every kid on Long Island to go to school is like $25,000. A lot of that is fixed cost, overhead cost, it's not new cost because you have new kids coming in. But, there is new money involved with new kids coming in to the school district. We need to try to get money from the federal government to help to address this issue.”