Not So Mysterious Roma Children

     This week in Greece, a girl named Maria was removed from a Roma family, because there was suspicion that the child was only being used to collect insurance money. The child was blonde, while her "parents" were both Roma, and DNA has proved that the child is in fact not their daughter.      
      Later, in Ireland, 2 children were removed by the authorities from their respective families, because they were blonde haired and blue eyed while their families, who are immigrants, were definitely of Roma descent. Both families protested that the cases of their children and of Maria were not related whatsoever, and claimed that the children were in fact theirs. Today, DNA has proven them correct, and Irish authorities will return the kids to their families.
     This disturbs me greatly. While I understand that protecting children should be an utmost priority, there should be undeniable proof that the children are in danger and are not actually biologically part of the family. The Irish police should have checked, I don't know, DNA FIRST TO DETERMINE THE CHILDREN'S PARENTS BEFORE TAKING THEM AWAY. A representative of one of the families says that their child and her siblings are having nightmares about this experience, and that the parents have not been able to sleep since the child was taken. There is sometimes a time and a place to act first and ask questions later, but that time is not when the situation concerns removing children from their families who are in no eminent danger. The least the police could have done was to monitor the family to make sure they did not run away while checking the DNA. If the children seemed to be in danger or had been reported missing, then yes I would agree with the police. However, as neither of the above was true before the case, I cannot back the police on this.
     The thing that disturbs me the most about these cases is that they sound like they could easily happen here in the US, with other immigrant families who do not have the right paperwork because they just moved here. As long as the children do not seem to be in any danger, police should wait and collect an airtight argument for removal before actually removing the kids.