Between 1930 and the mid-1970s, several thousand Canadian-born children were adopted by families in the United States. At times, adopting across the border was a strategy used to deliberately avoid professional oversight and take advantage of varying levels of regulation across states and provinces. The Traffic in Babies traces the efforts of Canadian and American child welfare leaders--with intermittent support from immigration officials, politicians, police, and criminal prosecutors--to build bridges between disconnected jurisdictions and control the flow of babies across the...

Between 1930 and the mid-1970s, several thousand Canadian-born children were adopted by families in the United States. At times, adopting across the border was a strategy used to deliberately avoid professional oversight and take advantage of varying levels of regulation across states and provinces. The Traffic in Babies traces the efforts of Canadian and American child welfare leaders--with intermittent support from immigration officials, politicians, police, and criminal prosecutors--to build bridges between disconnected jurisdictions and control the flow of babies across the...