Church-Sheltered Immigrant Deported
An internationally known illegal immigrant activist was deported Sunday, hours after her arrest in what was her first appearance outside of the Chicago church that has sheltered her from deportation officials for over a year.
Elvira Arellano, a 32-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico, was arrested by federal immigration officials outside of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church, also known as La Placita, in Los Angeles on Sunday.
Arellano made the trip to California – the first time she emerged from her Chicago Methodist sanctuary since she sought refuge in Aug. 15, 2006 – to attend an immigrant rights rally and to speak at several churches.
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"She has been deported. She is free and in Tijuana," said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church, which had sheltered Arellano and her son, according to NBC news. "She is in good spirits. She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."
Arellano has become a symbol in the battle of illegal immigrant parents to remain in the United States with their U.S. citizen children. The arrested activist has an 8-year-old U.S.-born son, Saul, who has, along with his mother, made many public appeals for more lenient immigration reform laws.
Saul and supporters of Arellano's cause were with her during the time of arrest.
"From the time I took sanctuary, the possibility has existed that they arrest me in the place and time they want," said Arellano in Spanish on Saturday, according to NBC. "I only have two choices. I either go to my country, Mexico, or stay and keep fighting. I decided to stay and fight."
While supporters hail her as a Mexican Rosa Parks, critics have denounced her as a lawbreaker who flaunts her crime in the face of government officials by holding press conferences. Opponents further add that Arellano and other illegal immigrant parents can simply take their child with them back to Mexico to avoid separation.
However, Arellano contends that if she takes her son with her back to Mexico then he will lose his rights as a U.S. citizen.
"She broke the law. You cannot use your child as a human shield to ignore immigration laws," said Joseph Turner, Western regional coordinator of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"You cannot say: I have a child who is an American citizen. That makes me immune to any law I violated," Turner argued.
At least 3.1 million children in the United States have one or more parents in the country illegally, according to the 2006 report by the Pew Hispanic Center.
Arellano first illegally immigrated to the United States in 1997 but was then shortly deported back to Mexico. She again crossed the border and made her way to Illinois in 2000 where she worked at O'Hare International Airport cleaning planes.
She was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare and later convicted of working under a false Social Security number.
Last Wednesday, on the one-year anniversary of her stay at Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, Arellano announced during a press conference of her plan to travel to the nation's capital. She said she would pray and fast for eight hours at Washington's National Mall on Sept. 12 to pressure Congress to pass more humane immigration reforms.
It was thought that her visit to Washington would mark her first departure from the church before her Los Angeles trip was announced.
Immigrant rights activists say they will still gather in Washington next month despite Arellano's absence.
"We always knew it was a possibility that she would be arrested," said Colman, who Arellano's son is now living with, according to the L.A. Times. "She was hopeful the country would have the wisdom and the humanity to let her state her case."
Arellano was part of a movement by metropolitan churches across the nation called the New Sanctuary Movement which sheltered illegal immigrants from deportation officials. Churches in New York, Chicago, San Diego and Los Angeles have participated in the movement.
However, some Christians have opposed the church's protection of illegal immigrants, arguing that compassion does not justify breaking the law.
Arellano had gone to Los Angles to speak at four local churches over the weekend about immigration reform that would open a pathway for the country's 12 million illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens.
Earlier this summer, President Bush and a group of bipartisan senators had tried to push through Congress an immigration reform bill that would have provided a pathway for illegal immigrants to gain legal status while beefing up border security and enacting penalties for those crossing the border illegally.
Fierce opposition to the bill from conservative Republicans who called the legislation amnesty had derailed the legislation, however, leaving the emotionally-charged immigration problem as a potential key issue during the presidential race and a matter for the next administration to contend with.
