People gathered at LaGuardia Airport to greet children who were separated from their parents due to Trump's 'zero-tolerance' immigration policy

• On Wednesday night, a group of people gathered at LaGuardia Airport to greet children who had been separated from their parents because of the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy.
• Over 200 children have been sent to facilities in New York state, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union. As of Wednesday night, more were on the way.
• Children as young as nine months old have been sent to facilities in New York.
• Also on Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order aiming to stop family separations while still maintaining a "zero-tolerance"immigration policy and prosecuting people who cross the border into the US.
• It's unclear if the federal government will do anything to reunite these families.

On Wednesday night, a group of people gathered at LaGuardia Airport in New York to greet children who had been separated from their parents because of the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy.

Their message was strong: "The act of coming to this country to seek refuge is not a crime," people chanted at one point.

People stayed overnight to greet the children arriving at the airport.

According to WNYC, the New York Civil Liberties Union estimated that over 200 children had been transported to facilities in New York as a result of the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy, which calls for the incarceration of any adult who crosses the border between the US and Mexico — even those seeking asylum. Since the policy was first implemented in April, more than 2,300 children have been separated from their parents.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order that aims to stop the separation of families while still maintaining a "zero-tolerance"immigration policy and prosecuting people who cross the border into the US. 

But as of Wednesday, children were still arriving in New York via LaGuardia Airport. And Governor Andrew Cuomo, speaking to CNN, noted that the executive order"I don’t think does anything of legal significance. It’s more of a press release than a legal document."

Some of the children who have arrived in New York are being sent to Cayuga Centers, a foster agency in East Harlem that places children in temporary care, as NY 1 first reported. The five girls seen in the video below were forcibly separated from their parents, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. He added that children who have been separated from their parents have been sent to at least 10 comparable facilities in New York.

After visiting the Cayuga Centers, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio held a press conference outside the building. De Blasio said that the federal government refused to disclose exactly how many children have been sent to New York after being separated from their parents. But according to the mayor, over 350 separated children had been to local centers — including one as young as nine months old.

At the time of the press conference, 239 children were under the custody of the center, he said. De Blasio said that Cayuga Centers' staff members told him that children arrived with the "evidence" of being held in detention centers, including lice, bed bugs, chicken pox, "physical diseases, and contagious situations."

"How is it possible that none of us knew that there were 239 kids right here in our own city?" De Blasio said. "How is the federal government holding back that information from the people of this city and holding back the help these kids could need?"

At this time, there's no evidence that Trump has reunited any families that have already been separated from each other — or that he plans to in the future.

In an op-ed for the New York Times, Cuomo said that New York state officials are working to reunite the families that have been separated and are planning to sue the federal government. 

The governor blasted the Trump administration's actions, citing the psychological damage being inflicted on both the parents and children. As Business Insider previously reported, the familial separation mirrors a "textbook strategy" of domestic abuse and could cause irreversible, lifelong damage across multiple generations.

Cuomo confirmed that the federal government has also banned New York state from providing additional medical or mental health attention for the children who have been separated from their parents — which he believes is only making things worse.

"These children shouldn't be in facilities in New York or anywhere else in the first place," Cuomo wrote. "They should be with their parents." 

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