From CNN comes the news that U.S. citizens are stealing the babies of undocumented immigrants

According to police, a woman claiming to be an immigration official spoke to migrant worker Rosa Sirilo-Francisco at the Hillsborough County Health Department and told her she had to turn over her 2-month-old daughter Sandra Cruz-Francisco or face deportation. The baby’s parents are from Mexico and had taken the child to the clinic for a routine check-up, according to Wilson.

After giving up the child, the mother was told by a relative in Georgia that federal immigration officials would not follow such a procedure, so the parents reported their daughter missing.

Ten hours later, Pereira surrendered the child to Manatee County sheriff’s deputies, according to authorities.

There are so many sad things going on here–I betcha million dollars that the woman specifically went after an immigrant child because she was going to try to pass it off as her own. Which makes me sad because I wonder what has this woman gone through mentally in her attempts to have a child? But even more than my sympathy for her, I feel for the family and for an entire community that knows it’s a legitimate practice of the U.S. government to take their children away for no damn reason (please see ICE raids). They have no recourse when somebody says “give me your child.” Even rapists have to be proven to be rapists in a court of law where they have the right to defend themselves before they lose their children.

Is citizenship really the only protection parents have when it comes to keeping their children safe?