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 for the child’s first year with a white couple. The lawsuit names as defendants the state Department of Human Services, the Singing River Health System in Pascagoula, DHS employee Vicki Hayes, DHS supervisor Ralph "Matt" Mathews and Singing River Hospital employee Abigail Medina.
The lawsuit also has appealed an earlier gag order that prohibited the mother and her attorneys 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 DHS and the hospital and the employees of both named in the lawsuit violated the constitutional rights of Cirila Baltazar Cruz and her daughter by separating them based on false allegations DHS officials did not 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," Mary Bauer, legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a news release. "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."
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