Suozzi criticized by activists for not doing enough to help immigrant children

Protesters gathered at a town hall meeting held by Congressman Tom Suozzi over what they say is a lack of action to help immigrant families.

They say Suozzi allowed a host of human rights protections to be eliminated from a House version of a border aid bill.

"We want our representative in Congress to call this out and make sure that now something is done to protect these children and stop treating them as criminals," says Patty Pastor of Manhasset.

Suozzi denies the protestors' claims. He says he was in favor of the bill with humanitarian protections but the House was forced to take up the Senate bill, which did not include those provisions.

Suozzi said the vote came as legislators were eager to get out of Washington D.C. for the Fourth of July recess. Eventually, lawmakers cleared a $4.6 million emergency aid package.

The congressman says if they didn't, the children at the border wouldn't have the aid they need.

"We needed to pass something before people left town," Suozzi said. "This didn't start yesterday. This has been going on for 60 days. We needed to do something to stem the flow of the suffering that was going on."

Some protesters say they are heading to the border this week to document conditions to keep the pressure on Congress to protect the children.