Immigration

last updated 8 January 2015

For her first nine years in the U.S., Elvira Arellano was a typical illegal immigrant, said Mark Brown in the Chicago Sun-Times. She used a forged Social Security card to get a maintenance job at O'Hare International Airport and had a son in the U.S., whom she raised on her own. But Arellano was arrested in a security sweep, and in 2006 was ordered to report for deportation. That's when she did something very atypical. She sought sanctuary in a Methodist church in Chicago and became a very public advocate for immigration reform, 'œmaking herself the human face of this bitter dispute.' Arellano argued that since her son, now 8, is an American citizen, she should be allowed to stay with him in the only country he has ever known. Fearing a public relations nightmare, federal agents refrained from raiding the church for a full year. Last week, Arellano left her sanctuary for the first time, traveling to Los Angeles for a protest vigil. She was promptly arrested and deported to Mexico.

Hasta la vista, said Debra J. Saunders in the San Francisco Chronicle. Arellano isn't Rosa Parks'”she's 'œa convicted felon' who had the bad luck to get caught. Lots of people wish the law didn't apply to them, but few dare flout it so openly. Arellano thumbed her nose at American justice. The only question is why authorities didn't laugh at her lefty church's claim to sanctuary and arrest her a long time ago. As for Arellano's sob story about keeping families together, no one forced her to leave her Mexican family in the first place, or to start a new one in the U.S. And 'œnow she is free to bring her son to Mexico to live with her.'