Chicago-Based Heartland Alliance Sheltering Separated Migrant Children
CHICAGO (CBS) -- At least one Chicago-based charity organization is providing shelter for migrant children who were separated from their families at the Mexican border.
Representatives from Heartland Alliance, a non-profit human rights organization, confirmed they're helping migrant children who were taken away from their parents before President Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily stopping the practice of separating families.
The Heartland Alliance did not say how many children they are serving, or where the kids are staying.
"For more than 30 years, we've been providing safe shelter and care for unaccompanied children who entered the country while awaiting family reunification including, more recently, children who have been separated from their families at the border," spokeswoman Mailee Garcia stated in an email.
The Heartland Alliance also said Illinois-based lawyers with its National Immigrant Justice Center are helping with immigration cases involving four families separated at the border, along with one father detained near Chicago, and three mothers in California.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office said it is not aware of any city assistance being provided to migrant children brought to Chicago. The mayor's office indicated that is a federal issue.
Meantime, the mayor of Gary, Indiana, was in Tornillo, Texas, on Thursday, to tour shelters where migrant children are being housed.
Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson is one of several U.S. mayors in Tornillo to demand the Trump administration immediately reunite migrant children with their parents.
The mayors also offered their help to the Trump administration and Congress to help address the nation's immigration problems.
Freeman-Wilson said the nation's mayors work in a bipartisan fashion every day to solve problems.
"We know that the ultimate solution lies in comprehensive immigration reform, and we offer ourselves as proven problem solvers to spend with you to get the job done," she said.
Freeman-Wilson said she believes the president's order reversing the family separation policy is promising, but she said it's no quick fix to the "long-term harm" it has caused migrant families.
