Foster care in Mississippi: Is stealing poor people’s children business-as-usual-Just like the rest of the country!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2010
Foster care in Mississippi: Is stealing poor people’s children business-as-usual?

The Southern Poverty Law Center today filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Cirila Baltazar Cruz, the undocumented immigrant mother in Mississippi whose child was confiscated at birth because Ms. Cruz doesn't speak English. The lawsuit alleges that the state child welfare agency, a judge and affluent white foster parents (lawyers who frequently practice before the judge who approved the removal) conspired to "steal" – and that's SPLC's word – Ms. Cruz's newborn daughter, Ruby, so the foster parents could adopt her.

News accounts about the suit are available from the Associated Press and the Jackson Ms. Clarion-Ledger. SPLC's website has links to the lawsuit complaint and to what may be an even more revealing document: a two-and-a-half page letter from the federal Department of Health and Human Services to the Mississippi Department of Human Services summarizing the findings of their own investigation.

http://nccpr.blogspot.com/2010/08/foster-care-in-mississippi-is-stealing.html