Child detained in legal limbo

ALBANY, N.Y. _ Levente Kovacs marked his second birthday a few weeks ago while being held in one of 10 privately run shelters in New York that are under contract with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The Hungarian boy, who does not speak English, has been held at a private shelter in the Bronx since he and his parents were captured by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Franklin County last month. According to a longtime friend of the couple, he is not eating well and was being evaluated two weeks ago for psychological trauma.

As his parents remain held in federal custody, the family's failed attempts to reunite the boy with his 23-year-old sister in Hungary underscore the perils that face families who have been separated by U.S. authorities after attempting to illegally enter the United States.

"The problem is they cannot communicate with this kid in his foreign language," said John Young, who has known the boy's parents, Regina Zsigmond and Laszlo Kovacs, for many years.

Young said he has tried unsuccessfully to help his friends _ who have been able to communicate only sparingly with him because of their custody status _ as they have tried to cut through an enormous bureaucracy that he said has been unwilling to move quickly on behalf of the boy.

Nearly a month ago, "Laszlo reached out to me and asked me to find out where their son is and to try and start a process so that they could get him back home with Laszlo's oldest daughter, who is 23," said Young, who met Kovacs about 20 years ago when they were working at a car wash in Raleigh, N.C.

Young said the process has dragged on for weeks and that Kovacs' daughter filled out multiple forms and provided copies of her passport, her parents' birth certificates and other documents necessary to reunite her with her brother. She had offered to fly to the United States, take custody of the boy and return immediately to Hungary.

Hungarian authorities have tried to assist in the case and certified that the young woman's residence in Hungary is safe for the child to stay there, Young said. But Young said that U.S. authorities recently informed him they will need copies of the oldest sister's fingerprints and that it may take up to a month to process those.

"Regina and Laszlo have said to me many times, 'Forget about us, get our son out of this center,'" Young said.

He added that employees of the Cayuga Centers facility in the Bronx told him they speak Spanish but not Hungarian. "So no one understands and can communicate with this child," he said.

Two weeks ago, Young said, Zsigmond called him from the Clinton County jail _ the last time he has spoken to her _ and said she had received a notice from Cayuga Centers informing her that her son was not doing well.

"They were going to take him for a psychological evaluation because he was not participating or eating well, and I brought that up in conversation with the supervisor of their center," Young said. "I said, 'He is 2 years old _ what are you going to evaluate?' "

The shelter where the boy is being held in the Bronx is one of several run by Cayuga Centers, a nonprofit orphanage based in Cayuga County that has several facilities across the state. Cayuga Center has had contracts with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement for at least several years and in 2016 reported more than $48 million in revenue.

The Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies issued a statement last week saying that Cayuga Centers' facilities are among the agencies in New York that have been taking in immigrant children, including many who arrived at U.S. borders unaccompanied by an adult.

Kovacs is facing deportation and being held at a federal detention facility in Buffalo. Young said it's unclear why Kovacs' son has not been transferred to Buffalo to be with his father as he awaits deportation.

Zsigmond fled the United States several years ago after being charged with federal marriage fraud in North Carolina. She served 27 days in the Clinton County jail following her May 24 arrest for crossing the border illegally. Officials familiar with the case said she is "in transit" to Greensboro, N.C., where she was indicted in 2014 on charges of marrying a North Carolina man in a sham marriage to gain legal permanent residency.

President Donald J. Trump signed an order last week that he said would no longer allow immigrant families to be separated when they are detained at U.S. borders. But more than 2,000 children have been separated from their families and parents since the federal Justice Department announced a new "zero-tolerance" policy on illegal border crossings in early April.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced last week that roughly 700 of those children have ended up in New York shelters, and called on federal authorities to release more information about their cases to state regulators. Cuomo said his administration also was offering resources to help provide additional counseling services to the children.

Young said he called the governor's office on Monday seeking help to get Levente Kovacs out of the shelter, but did not immediately receive a response after leaving a voicemail message.

In the meantime, employees at Cayuga Centers also encouraged Young to initiate a process to take temporary custody of the child. But he said his negotiations with the nonprofit center have fallen apart.

"I was told not to call back there," he said. "They tell you that you are not allowed information with this child because we don't have signed documentation. ... We're waiting for the arrival of Regina to North Carolina so I can get a letter stating that she is allowing me to be a sponsor for her son. We're going to keep both options moving."

The family's ordeal began last month when U.S. border patrol agents found the couple and their son huddled behind a fallen tree in the woods along a rural road in Chateaugay near the Canadian border.

Court records indicate Zsigmond had entered the United States in 2003 as a visitor and overstayed her visa. She eventually obtained legal permanent status, but that fell apart in 2013 when she was accused of obtaining that status through a sham marriage.

She told border agents that she and her husband flew from Hungary to Toronto last month and then took a taxi to Montreal, where they paid an Uber driver to bring them to the U.S. border.

Zsigmond's federal public defender last week declined to comment, saying he is not authorized to discuss her case without her authorization. A spokesman for the Hungarian consulate in New York City did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for Cayuga Centers did not respond to a request for comment on Monday afternoon.

Last week, the organization issued a statement saying that federal regulations require that the immigrant children in its care "be placed in the least restrictive environment, receive services that go to ensuring their safety, health and well-being, and be released to a parent, legal guardian, or family member without unnecessary delay."

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