Cobble Hill event to match foster mothers, kids seized at border canceled

June 28, 2018 By Raanan Geberer Brooklyn Daily Eagle

People gather at Saint Mark Catholic Church for a solidarity with migrants vigil on June 21, 2018 in El Paso, Texas. President Donald Trump's order ending the policy of separating immigrant families at the border leaves a host of unanswered questions, including what happens to the more than 2,300 children already taken from their parents and where the government will house all the newly detained migrants in a system already bursting at the seams. AP Photo/Matt York

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Spanish-speaking Brooklynites and other New Yorkers have expressed interest in becoming foster parents to immigrant children who have been separated from their parents at this country’s southern border. The Cayuga Center in Harlem, one of the facilities housing these children, organized an event at Cobble Hill’s 61 Local bar for more than a dozen potential foster mothers on Monday, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Then, abruptly, the organization canceled, and representatives didn’t respond to calls and emails about why the orientation was called off. However, an email circulated by the event’s organizer said the cancellation was “due [to] the onslaught by the media” and “an outpouring of people contacting them to foster, donate, etc.”

The organization, while not taking calls from the press, still has other orientations planned for later this month. The Times described the women who showed up on Monday as mostly “women of means, late-30s and early-40s professionals with the space, income and the deep well of resources experts say are required to successfully care for young asylum seekers.”