Four day old Yair Anthony Carrillo and his mother, Maria Gurrolla of Nashville, Tennessee were doubly victimized by the fear that is the current immigration system in the United States on Tuesday, when the infant was kidnapped by a woman claiming to be an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

The fake official slashed Gurrolla after she initially refused to hand over the child though in the end Carillo was taken away from her.

As if having your newborn child violently taken from your arms weren’t traumatic enough, enter Yuri Cunza, president of Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and publisher of La Noticia, a Spanish language newspaper in Nashville who instead of connecting the long history of how immigration enforcement separates parents from their children, from Elvira Arellano to Cirila Baltazar Cruz, asks Latino immigrants communities to trust law enforcement and other state agencies who act as de facto ICE agents.

“I am really concerned about the possibility of newborn babies and Hispanic women can be targeted because of a level of vulnerability,” Cunza said…

Cunza said that the suspect posing as an immigration officer will create a chilling effect for Hispanics who regularly interact with immigration authorities. “It is misrepresenting how the government works or behaves in this country,” he said.

From Postville to Patchogue, the cries of immigrant mothers and children tell what is just another day on the job for those who continue to terrorize Latino immigrant communities and the carriers of hate who spread their racist gospel via the mainstream media. It is why children at a young age learn to stay close to their mothers in immigrant communities and maintain a low gaze in the presence of law enforcement. It doesn’t even matter if the ICE badge is real or not, just ask el espiritu de Brisenia Flores and her father. Yair Anthony Carrillo, with four days on this earth, is learning how to live in fear when he should be in his mother’s loving care and Latina motherhood is criminalized and victimized.

Updated: Late last night, after I wrote this post, Yair was found safe.

Via/ The Latin Americanist, Standing Firm, The Unapologetic Mexican