The crackdown on illegal immigration in the United States has left some immigrant families in California and elsewhere in disrepair. When detainment and deportation actions are carried out many mothers and fathers are separated from their children and some parents may be separated from their children permanently.

According to the Applied Research Center, a human rights group, there are an estimated 5,100 children of detained immigrants in foster care across 22 states. Some children of detained parents who are immigrants are even adopted by U.S. citizens when the natural parents are held in detention centers or deported back to their native countries.

The famliy immigration issue has grown into a national problem and according to one immigration attorney the problem can be stated as such, "You came here as an undocumented immigrant, we're going to break up your family, we're going to keep your kids."

For one mother her story of separation began in 2008 when police arrived at her doorstep to arrest her for child endangerment. It was alleged that the mother had left her 13-year-old son who is disabled alone in her family's apartment. At the time, the mother was not home and believed her son was with her husband and two daughters, but her husband had taken the daughters to the park and left the 13-year-old behind.

When the mother arrived home holding her infant daughter the police greeted her. They asked whether she was illegal and whether or not she had papers. She did not have any papers and was arrested at home.

The mother was kept in detention for two years and eventually was deported to Nogales, Mexico. Today she lives outside Guadalajara, Mexico and continues to fight two cases in the U.S. legal system to win back her children.

Source: abcnews.go.com, "Stolen babies? Immigrant mother loses four kids," Lauren Gilger and Charles Gorra, Feb. 2, 2012