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Snyder: State can't help return immigrant kids brought to Michigan

Dozens of immigrant children separated from their parents — including babies and toddlers — have been relocated to Michigan.

LANSING — Gov. Rick Snyder said Thursday he is glad immigrant families are no longer being separated at the U.S.-Mexico border, but there appears to be little his administration can do to help reunite children already brought to Michigan with their parents.

"There's not a lot we can do as a state," Snyder said outside the Capitol. "We don't know when the kids are coming or going, or necessarily where they're at.

"The foster agencies contract directly with the federal government," and "we don't have a direct role in that," or "get knowledge of what the federal government is doing."

Snyder made his remarks as he signed the nearly $40-billion general government state budget for 2019. He is expected to sign the $16.8-billion bill related to education spending separately, possibly next week.

Dozens of immigrant children separated from their parents — including babies and toddlers — have been relocated to Michigan, where foster care agencies are scrambling to meet their needs, the Free Press reported Tuesday.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to end, at least temporarily, the separation from their children of immigrant parents accused of entering the U.S. illegally. But that didn't happen until an estimated 2,300 or more children had been separated.

Snyder said the separation of families was "a terrible situation," and "it's good there is some resolution to that."

Michelle Haskell, an outreach team leader with Samaritas in Lansing, said that typically, immigrant children who come to Michigan on their own stay in foster care for about 45 days, with the goal being to reunite them with family members already living in the U.S. That's the goal this time, too, she said, but noted that there's a new element: These kids aren't here on their own, but rather were separated from their parents who are now facing prosecution.

"Nobody really knows how it's going to work out," Haskell said. "There's a new element. We just don't know if it's going to work out the way it did before."

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.

Help us find the children

Do you know where migrant children are being housed in Michigan? Send any tips to Tresa Baldas at tbaldas@freepress.com or call 313-223-4296.

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