New York (WRGB) — Governor Kathy Hochul has criticized the recent detention of a mother and her two children by ICE agents at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. The family, including a 7-year-old girl, was detained during a routine immigration check-in, an action Hochul described as “cruel and unjust.”
Hochul said,
I have been clear: whether under President Biden or Donald Trump, I will work with the federal government to secure our borders and deport violent criminals who pose a real threat, but ripping a mother from her children and detaining her 7-year-old daughter is cruel and unjust. It does not make anyone in New York or across the country safer.
Hochul revealed that the mother and daughter have been separated from their family and sent to a facility in Texas. Her administration has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, demanding their immediate return to New York.
“This is not the first cruel and unjust act at 26 Federal Plaza,” Hochul said, urging for better conditions at the detention center. She called for the Department of Homeland Security to allow New York’s congressional members to conduct oversight and ensure the welfare of detainees.
Hochul criticized the broader practices of ICE, noting that less than half of immigration arrests involve individuals with a criminal history.
If a 7-year-old is who President Trump considers the ‘worst of the worst,’ then the promise was a lie from the start.