"...And don't come back!!"
Posted on 08/20/2007 4:32:42 AM PDT by Ghayyour
A Mexican woman whose fight to stay in the US with her US-born son attracted national attention has been sent back to Mexico as an illegal immigrant. Elvira Arellano was arrested in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon and deported several hours later.
She became a prominent figure after taking refuge in a Chicago church for a year to avoid being separated from eight-year-old Saul, a US citizen.
He is staying with people who were with her when she was arrested.
Ms Arellano was handed over to Mexican authorities in Tijuana at 2200 (0500GMT) and freed, Mexican officials said.
Elvira Arellano and Saul made a powerful emotional case for keeping the families of illegal immigrants together.
Last November, Saul went to Mexico's Congress to make a personal appeal for help to stop his mother's deportation.
Ms Arellano took refuge in the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago last August, defying a deportation order.
But this weekend she left the church to travel to Los Angeles to back calls for immigration reform.
On Saturday, Ms Arellano had said she was not afraid of being arrested by US immigration officials.
"From the time I took sanctuary the possibility has existed that they arrest me in the place and time they want," she said.
"I only have two choices. I either go to my country, Mexico, or stay and keep fighting. I decided to stay and fight."
Ms Arellano first came illegally to the US in 1997. She was deported but returned days later.
She settled in Chicago, working as a cleaner at O'Hare International Airport, where she was arrested in 2002 and convicted of being employed under a false Social Security number.
Defying the law
Ms Arellano was supposed to hand herself over for deportation on 15 August 2006, but instead sought refuge with her son at the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago.
US authorities did not attempt to seize her from the church.
Immigrants' rights campaigners said they would stage protests and vigils to support her and demand her return to the US.
But a group favouring limits on immigration said her arrest was long overdue.
"Just because the woman has gone public and made an issue of the fact that she is defying law doesn't mean the government doesn't have to do its job," Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform told the Associated Press.
She’ll be making money from paid interviews and probably set up some sort of foundation and scam money from parents that are worried that their children won’t be able to hop the fence. I suspect she will be Mexico’s Cindy Sheehan, losing her child (though on purpose)to the evil Americans and crying all the way to the bank. Heck, I bet the Larry King interview is already set up.
If family unity is the higher value, her son could join her in Mexico. Problem solved.
She sounds exactly like Cindy Sheehan (with a slight Hispanic accent) when she speaks in her ‘activist’ voice.
several related:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;s=elvira
(not dupes)
Since when can a church provide sanctuary to criminals?
As a felon, I don’t understand why she wasn’t jailed and tried. Sending her back to Mexico was nothing more than a *short* vacation.
"...And don't come back!!"
If she wants too, she will be back next week due to our swiss cheese border. Since she committed document fraud and identity theft, she should have been imprisoned for a while and then deported IMO. She had already been deported once before, as well.
I agree 100% and our laws need to be clarified to make that an indisputable reality for all those who support illegals and anything that closely resembles shamnesty.
I don’t know why it took so long to arrest her, and why ICE didn’t raid the church to get her. If an armed robber who shot someone holed up in a church the cops certainly wouldn’t stop at the steps.
“Since she committed document fraud and identity theft, she should have been imprisoned for a while and then deported IMO. “
IMO, she’s soaked up enough of our tax dollars. They need to find something less cushy for her.
It cannot. However, Police and Prosecutors are aware that from a PR standpoint, it doesn't looks good to send in a squad of officers and drag out a screaming woman from the front door of a church.
That was my first thought. Why wouldn’t her son want to be with his mother?
I don’t believe that the US government seperates families if the Mom wants the children to be deported with her. Something is fishy about this.
Call me insensitive but a child born in the United States as the result of an Illegal entry isn’t a US citizen.
_______________________
But under the law, they are! Need to change the law.
There is no reason to be separated from her son: take him with you!!
What about the side door?
Elvira, yeaow,
Elvira, yeaow,
My heart’s on fire,
Elvira.
NOT!
“It cannot. However, Police and Prosecutors are aware that from a PR standpoint, it doesn’t looks good to send in a squad of officers and drag out a screaming woman from the front door of a church.”
You are correct of course. Its really sad that the PR of dragging a convicted felon off to jail is considered worse than letting a convicted felon thumb their nose at America.
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