Thread: ELVIRA ARRESTED IN L.A.!!!

Good idea, LadyofShallot. Tomorrow we should all contact ICE and thank them profusely! Thanks for posting the telephone numbers.

It's going to be very interesting to learn about the dynamics behind the scenes in L.A.! I can't believe Villaraigosa and Bratton allowed ICE to arrest her! On the other hand, it's a GREAT political ploy for Villaraigosa's re-election campaign!!!

Whatever the reason...HALLELUJAH!!!

BTW, there will be a rally tonight at 8:00 in downtown L.A.. Those illegals are really going to be on the warpath!!! Toooo bad!!!

Here's the details - I haven't seen this posted yet, forgive me if it has!

Immigration activist Arellano arrested
By Antonio Olivo | Tribune staff reporter
8:00 PM CDT, August 19, 2007
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Digg Del.icio.us Facebook Furl Google Reddit Spurl Yahoo Print Single page view Reprints text size: LOS ANGELES - An illegal Mexican immigrant who sought refuge inside a Chicago church for a year was arrested in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon after taking her campaign on the road.

Elvira Arellano was arrested about 4:15 p.m. Chicago time by law enforcement officials after leaving Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in downtown Los Angeles, said Emma Lozano, an adviser who was there during the arrest.

After talking to news media inside the church, Arellano and her supporters got into their van to head north to San Jose, where she was scheduled to speak at another church, Lozano said. Moments after they got in the van, an unmarked vehicle stopped them.



The driver of Arellano's van, Roberto Lopez, poked his head out of the van because he wanted to see why they were being blocked. Several other unmarked vehicles surrounded their van.

Agents came out of all the cars screaming at the top of their lungs for her to get out, Lozano said. Her 8-year-old son, Saul, started to cry, and Arellano said to everyone in the car, "Calm down. Don't have any fear. They can't hurt me."

Then she turned to the people who were about to arrest her and she said, "You're going to have to give me a minute with my son," Lozano said. She spent time with her son in the car, and then surrendered.

It was over in less than two minutes. She was arrested Sunday on Main Street, near Our Lady Queen of Angels, where Arellano slept Saturday night and where she's held several press conferences Saturday and Sunday.

In a statement released Sunday night, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that its "officers in Los Angeles today arrested criminal alien and immigration fugitive Elvira Arellano."

"Arellano, who was taken into custody without incident, is being processed for removal to Mexico based upon a deportation order originally issued by a federal immigration judge in 1997," the statment said. "Arresting and removing criminal aliens is one of ICE's top enforcement priorities and the agency will continue to pursue these cases vigorously."

Much of the anger from all parts of the political spectrum surrounding illegal immigration has been crystallized by Arellano's story. After entering the country illegally twice, she became an activist shortly after she was arrested in 2002 during a federal sweep at O'Hare International Airport, where Arellano cleaned airplanes. She was later convicted of using a fake Social Security card.

Rick Biesada, director and founder of the Chicago Minuteman Project, lauded the arrest, but he said it came a year too late.

"I was wondering why the police were dragging their feet," he said. "By not going in there and getting her, other illegals were going to churches seeking sanctuary. Now we're going to have hell to pay in this country trying to extract these people."

Local Spanish-language radio host Javier Salas said he felt badly for what happened to Arellano. But in leaving the sanctuary of Adalberto United Methodist Church and heading to Los Angeles, it was only a matter of time before she was arrested.

"I'm not happy that this happened, but it was bound to happen because she was challenging the system," said Salas, the host of the morning-drive talk show La Tremenda on WRTO AM-1200.

By Sunday afternoon Salas was already talking about the arrest on the radio, and callers were weighing in too.

Callers were "saying that she was traveling to Los Angeles and around the United States, she would provoke [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the anti-immigrant groups," he said. "There would be checkpoints everywhere."

Salas questioned why it appeared that mainstream media make Arellano out to be the face of undocumented immigrants, when her actions have exacerbated the animosity toward them.

"She wasn't down to earth," he said, adding that Arellano acted "entitled" to rights "when there's thousands and thousands of people in the same situation."

"She made everything worse," Salas said. "She's not a face of the immigrants. My family without papers, she doesn't represent them."

Activists in the Chicago area who have followed Arellano's story weren't surprised that the law caught up to her.

LOS ANGELES - "Everyone knew it was probably a question of when, not if " she would be arrested, said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "It just made me feel really sad because she knows she's looking at time in prison. I feel bad for her and for her child and for all the other people in that situation."

Hoyt said he met Arellano nearly three years ago after she was arrested in a sweep of undocumented immigrants working at O'Hare International Airport.

Arellano had been cleaning planes at night, he said. At the time --"before she was famous," Hoyt noted--she was afraid, intimidated and ashamed because she had been arrested by federal agents in front of her son.



"She was really emotional and really hurt. She was deeply offended that she would get arrested in front of her child and be treated like a criminal," Hoyt said. "She thought someone who comes here to work hard at night so she can support her child is not a criminal."

In the intervening years, however, she turned her pain to activism, organizing the families of those being deported, he said.

"I think she's an incredibly brave person who's put a human face on the suffering of the undocumented in this country and because of the cowardice of politicians, many more families are going to be destroyed and many more people are going to die on the borders," Hoyt said. "America needs to look itself in the face and ask if we want to be that kind of country."

The church where Arellano sought sanctuary for the last year became the command center where friends and organizers gathered to plan a vigil on Sunday night to show support for Arellano after her arrest.

Those who lived with her and knew her best at Alberto United Methodist Church cried together and hugged each other but quickly brushed aside the tears, channeling their grief into action.

Less than an hour after the arrest, Jacobita Alonso arrived at the front of the church in tears. For several minutes, people inside the church struggled to open the padlock on the gate that for a year had kept Arellano protected from the outside.

Work immediately began for a vigil, from phone calls to alert supporters to getting batteries for the speakers they would use to take their message to the street.

Jacobita Alonso, a lay leader at the church who stayed with Arellano on the second-floor apartment over the last year, felt propelled to action.

"We cannot sit here only grieving. All we can do is organize our people. We want her to know she is not alone. The community is crying. Her fight is a fight for all people," she said Sunday. "There are thousands of Elviras. There are thousands of mothers just like Elvira who just want to keep their families together."

Alonso and a dozen other supporters sat in the second-floor apartment where Arellano lived, watching television news broadcasts and sending out messages by e-mail.

The group has already organized a vigil for 7 p.m. at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office downtown at Congress Parkway and Clark Street and another at 9 a.m. at the same location to show support for Arellano, but also to protest the arrest.

George Atkins sat in the sanctuary, quitely observing.

"I'm sad she was arrested, but I'm proud that she was a member of this church and that I got to know her," Atkins said. "She always knew she could be arrested. She could have slipped quietly into the night like many others do but she chose to stand up for what she believed in."

Questions swirled up and down the church stairs. What would happen to Arellano's son? Where would Arellano go? Alonso said the boy was with Lozano, her closest advisor, but she wondered if he would be returned to Chicago, as Arellano had expressed hope to her many times before.

"All I can say is that miracles exist and we're praying," Alonso said.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... b01_layout

"How dare they arrest this woman?"- Javier Rodriguez.

What this man just said,to all of America, is how dare we enforce our laws, and the decisions of our courts, on our own soil!?

How dare we? Well, Mr.Rodriguez, for the answer to that, look no further than your own arrogance, and that of your illegal "heroine" who has been thumbing her nose at America and Americans! I'm willing to bet, that now, there are going to be more arrests, just like this one, as our government now understands that we, the lawful citizens of the United States of America, will no longer put up with our laws not being enforced, nor with the outright defiance and hatred we receive daily from the illegal immigrant community and its treasonous American allies!

I have told you illegals and supporters of illegals, that you would one day find out why a mouse was ill-advised to spit in the face of an eagle. I hope this is the first of many such lessons on that subject!

Could her movement come under SEDITION?

Sedition
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia - Cite This Source

sedition, in law, acts or words tending to upset the authority of a government. The scope of the offense was broad in early common law, which even permitted prosecution for a remark insulting to the king. Although there have been several statutes in the United States forbidding seditious utterances and writings, the protection guaranteed to speech and press by the First Amendment to the Constitution has made them difficult to enforce except during periods of great national stress. The Sedition Act of 1798 generated so much opposition (see Alien and Sedition Acts) that similar statutes were not enacted until the 20th cent. During World War I the Espionage Act (1917) and the Sedition Act (191 punished speeches and writings that interfered with the war effort or caused contempt for the government. Vaguely worded and broadly interpreted, they resulted in over 2,000 prosecutions, mostly against radicals and the radical press. The Smith Act of 1940, restricted in scope to the advocacy of violence against the government, was invoked only infrequently during World War II, though it was later used successfully to prosecute Communist party leaders, as in Dennis v. United States (1951). The libel decision of Sullivan v. New York Times (1964), by granting special protection to criticism of public officials, largely eliminated what remained of the crime of sedition in the United States.

By the way, since when do Villaraigosa and Bratton have the authority to tell federal agents what they may or may not do with respect to a federal fugitive? From my understanding of the law, they have absolutely no authority to do so, and there would be no reason to even ask them in advance, as the matter is outside their jurisdiction(Thank God!)

I'm late coming into this because I was taking a nap but........YAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!

And I agree, we all need to thank ICE profusely!! I knew they wouldn't let us down!!!!

GOOD!!! Now we have about 12,000,000++ more to arrest and deport!

Deportation is much too nice for this illegal. A couple years in the poke should show her that she should respect our laws. I say 5 years with the other criminals, then deport her.

Originally Posted by Gadfly

By the way, since when do Villaraigosa and Bratton have the authority to tell federal agents what they may or may not do with respect to a federal fugitive? From my understanding of the law, they have absolutely no authority to do so, and there would be no reason to even ask them in advance, as the matter is outside their jurisdiction(Thank God!)

You are right about that...they don't have any authority to tell ICE what to do, but it seems that there is a code of silence here because of Special Order 40, sanctuary city status, etc. Elvira was such a 'hot potato' - I'm shocked that ICE would have the guts to do the deed on their own. They sure didn't go after her in Chicago. Don't get me wrong, LOL....I'm ECSTATIC!!!

The next few days are going to be very, very interesting! I hope the illegals riot in the streets so that the whole country can get another look at their criminal behavior!!!

"I think she's an incredibly brave person who's put a human face on the suffering of the undocumented in this country and because of the cowardice of politicians, many more families are going to be destroyed and many more people are going to die on the borders," Hoyt said. "America needs to look itself in the face and ask if we want to be that kind of country."

I just looked myself RIGHT in the face.

Yes, I DO want to be that kind of country. Law enforcing, without anchor babies, without wet foot/dry footers, without illegals used for slave wages for the benefit of our corrupt government and greedy businesses - only to drag us working class into poverty by bankrupting our health care systems and social services, bringing and spreading pestilence and diseases we haven't dealt with in 50 years, disrespecting our women, our American culture, causing increases in violent and non-violent crime and driving fatalities across our nation, clogging up our prisons, jails and court systems by the multitudes and dirtying up our property, national parks and WalMart parking lots with filthy diapers, litter and trash - making our country that of a third world country as quickly as our U.S. government will let them.

LAWS, WALLS & DEPORTATION. AND NO MORE ITINs FROM THE IRS FOR ILLEGALS. THAT IN ITSELF SHOULD BE ILLEGAL.

http://www.cis.org/articles/2002/back1202.html
http://www.nilc.org/immsemplymnt/wkplce ... frc019.htm
http://www.workingimmigrants.com/2006/0 ... _numb.html