The baby needed somewhere to go. So in the frantic hours before officers took her parents away to immigration detention, her mom turned to their pastor and his wife. As squad cars waited outside the family’s Lakeland, Florida, trailer home, she gave them a crash course in how to care for the 4-month-old.

Briany, with her plump cheeks and full head of dark hair, wasn’t normally this fussy. But it was late that January night — around midnight — and she was still hungry. Her mom, Doris Flores, had tried nursing her to calm her down. It didn’t work. When she brought Briany to her breast, the milk wouldn’t come. Flores thought it had to do with the panic that set in after the officers arrested the baby’s father and told her she was next.

The baby also drank formula. The pastor and his wife, who’d never had children of their own, should take her bottles and the yellow cans of formula, too, and follow the instructions on the label. They should use distilled water, never from the tap. Briany drank 5 ounces at each feeding. She needed to eat every two to two-and-a-half hours.

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