Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Holds Media Availibility with United States Conference of Mayors

June 21, 2018

Mayor Bill de Blasio: You’re seeing something right here at the border that you haven’t seen enough of, a gathering of leaders who look like America, Republican and Democrat alike in common cause.

Even in this moment of crisis, there’s some seeds of hope here because all of us believe that change is needed and all of us want to be part of that solution, and we can talk to each other and we can hear each other.

Mayor Margo is right. I thank him and everyone for being here because the change has to happen on the ground in this country. It has to happen in the hearts of Americans and it has to happen because leaders decide we won’t tolerate an inhumane situation anymore. So, you’re looking at some bipartisanship right now. You’re looking at some purpose. We came here to tell the American people there is that hope.

Let’s be honest that the pain that brought us here, the pain of knowing that children were taken from their mothers, the pain of knowing that they don’t know – those kids don’t know when they will see their parents again – the pain of knowing our government will not tell us the truth. 

We’re going to go over there, all together, representing cities from all over this country and we fully expect, tragically – we fully expect to not be told the truth, we fully expect to be turned away the way senators and congressmen have been turned away just trying to get the honest truth about what’s happening to these children just as all of you have been doing.

It’s painful for all of us who believe in America and believe in democracy. It’s painful that I had to find out in my own city yesterday – I walked into a center, a social service center in East Harlem, to find that 239 children, who were taken from their parents under the family separation policy, had been sent 2,000 miles away and they don’t know when they’re going to see their parents again.

I walked into a classroom – almost 40 young children from Guatemala trying somehow to find some normalcy, their teachers trying to help them. These kids have been traumatized. These kids are suffering physically and mentally.

A young boy named Eddie, nine years old from Honduras, taken from his mom at Eagle Pass, Texas, put on a bus to travel 2,000 miles to New York City. Think of how broken that is and our government didn't even tell us it was happening. But I’ll finish on a point of hope because there are those moments when you can feel the dams breaking and the change is coming. And what you see around you is an indication of that.

The President retreated today, has not solved the problem. We’re all saying that. Zero tolerance still exists. That’s breaking an American tradition of respecting people fleeing oppression. The families are not reunified. We don’t know when they’ll be. We’re going to fight for that but the hope is that people are demanding a change and it cannot be ignored. And if it won’t happen in Washington, we will make it happen.