Zero Tolerance

"Please!" she cried. "Please, no! Please don't!"

"M'am, if you don't let go of the child, we'll have to take her by force," the officer told her, taking a step toward the mother and her wailing toddler.

"Please!" she cried, clutching her daughter to her breasts. "You can't take her from me! You don't know what we've been through! Please don't!" She fell to her knees, her arms around her child, tears streaming down her face. "Please let us stay together, please don't take my baby."

"Hold her down, Armando," the officer told his partner.

The two men descended on the woman. They were large men with strong arms and rough hands. One of them applied pressure to the woman's wrist, easily breaking her grip, then twisted her arm behind her back. The woman shrieked in terror as pain shot up through her arm and shoulder.

"NO!" she screamed in desperation. "DON'T TAKE MY BABY!"

The other officer dug his boot into the woman's thigh as he jerked the crying child from her free arm.

"POR EL AMOR DE DIOS!" the woman screeched, "NO!"

The officer holding the woman down wrenched her other arm behind her back and then handcuffed her. She tried to get to her feet, but the officer yanked her down so that she fell flat on her face.

"No, no, no..." she sobbed into the dirt. "Please... no..."

"Armando, you keep an eye on her," the officer told his partner over the sounds of the child crying. "I'm going to put the kid in the truck."

"Alright," Armando said, putting a boot between the woman's shoulders to hold her down.

The woman listened in defeat as the sound of her crying daughter faded into the distance. Her body shuddered as she cried, the pain in her heart overwhelming like a black fire burning deep inside her chest. The sounds of her daughter's cries became softer and softer. After a few moments, she couldn't hear her child at all. She held her breath, straining desperately for any sound of her baby, but all she could hear was the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. She felt a wave of panic wash over her.

"Armando, please," she whispered in Spanish. "Please don't let them take my baby."

"What did you think would happen?" the officer snapped in English. "You broke the law. You came into this country and broke the law, and you were stupid enough to bring your kid with you."

"I had no choice," the woman choked, "I had to come, and I couldn't leave my baby. Please, Armando, please let us go. I will take her back to Mexico, and I will never try to cross again, I promise! I swear on my own life, on the life of my daughter, we will never come back! But please, please don't take her from me."

"That ain't gonna happy, lady," Armando said flatly. "We've got laws in this country, and it's our job to enforce them."

"Please," the woman cried, desperation and panic coloring her voice. "Please, Mr. Armando, please just let us go and we will never come back. Please don't take her from me. I can't bear it. I can't be without my baby." She paused for a moment, fighting the feeling that she was going to collapse in on herself. "We are just a mother and her child," the woman said after a moment. "How could you take a child from its mother? How could this be a law? How could you do something so terrible as this?"

"We're just following orders," the officer said.