The Guardian reports on a UK mother who came down with pneumonia on a Christmas shopping trip to New York City. Her two daughters were told they couldn’t wait at the hospital, that a foster family would be found for them. And instead, they were taken to an orphanage. And…

…they were separated, strip-searched and questioned before being kept under lock and key for the next 30 hours.

The mother checked herself out of the hospital against medical advice because she was told her daughters could not leave the orphanage. Now she’s in receipt of a letter from the NY Administration for Children’s Services because…

she’s under investigation.

Because her kids were placed in an orphanage.

Imagine if she wasn’t white and English wasn’t her native language… or she wasn’t from the United Kingdom, but a country in the Middle East.

Did America ever really exist, or was it just a nice story to tell little kids in grade school?