SPLC Sues Mississippi Authorities, Hospital for Illegally Taking Immigrant's Newbor [View All]

The Southern Poverty Law Center today filed a federal lawsuit against Mississippi authorities who took a newborn baby from a Mexican immigrant mother and placed the child with a white couple. The SPLC also has appealed an earlier gag order that prohibited the mother and her lawyers from speaking publicly about her family’s ordeal despite the mother’s request to waive confidentiality rules of the youth court.

The lawsuit charges that the Mississippi Department of Human Services (MDHS), two of its employees and an employee of Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, Miss., violated the constitutional rights of Cirila Baltazar Cruz and her daughter by separating them based on false allegations that MDHS officials failed to properly investigate.

"Mississippi officials and hospital workers conspired to steal Cirila Baltazar Cruz's baby by inventing false charges against her – allegations she couldn't refute because she doesn't speak the right language – and then told her she couldn't talk about it," said SPLC Legal Director Mary Bauer. "This was an outrageous violation of her most fundamental rights, and we're deeply concerned that other mothers in Mississippi might be subjected to the same treatment."

Two days after Baltazar Cruz gave birth to her daughter at Singing River Hospital in November 2008, the child was taken from her amid allegations provided by a hospital employee. The employee spoke only Spanish to the mother, who speaks limited Spanish and virtually no English. (She speaks Chatino, an indigenous language in Mexico.) In addition, the officials would not allow Baltazar Cruz's cousin to serve as an interpreter despite his offer to do so. Instead, the child was placed in the custody of two Gulf Coast lawyers who frequently practiced law before the youth court judge who approved the removal of the child.

more . . . http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-sues-mississippi-authorities-hospital-for-illegally-taking-immigrants-newborn?ondntsrc=MBQ100870NWS&newsletter=newsgen-20100819