Thread: Activist heads to L.A. rally

By Antonio Olivo | Tribune staff reporter
11:55 PM CDT, August 17, 2007


Elvira Arellano has slipped out of the Chicago church where she avoided deportation for a year and is apparently headed toward Los Angeles, where an immigration march is being planned for Saturday, a West Coast march organizer said.

Arellano, an illegal Mexican immigrant, became a lightning rod in the country's immigration debate after taking refuge inside the Humboldt Park church last summer on the day she was to report to the Department of Homeland Security to be deported. Just two days ago, she announced she would leave the church, with the intention of going to Washington, D.C., to participate in a Sept. 12 prayer and fast vigil on the National Mall.

If all goes according to plan, she will be joined in Los Angeles by her son, Saul, 8, a U.S. citizen, who flew ahead with a family friend, said Javier Rodriguez, whose March 25 Coalition is coordinating the planned march through downtown Los Angeles.

Rodriguez called Arellano's decision to provoke federal immigration authorities by appearing publicly "her last fight at the O.K. Corral."

"That is a courageous, courageous woman, absolutely," Rodriguez said.

Arellano, 32, apparently left the Adalberto United Methodist Church on Thursday night, shortly after the church locked its doors and stopped receiving visitors, announcing a period of meditation and prayer. A source privy to the plans for Arellano's departure who requested anonymity said she left after 8 p.m.

A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined Friday to comment on Arellano, referring instead to a nearly year-old statement that calls her a fugitive and explains such arrests are prioritized based on investigative leads and intelligence.

With officials declining to raid the tiny Division Street church during Arellano's year there, her story has come to crystallize the passions of both sides of the immigration debate.

Supporters have compared her defiance to that of civil rights leader Rosa Parks. Critics, among them African-Americans who resent that comparison, say she embodies arrogance from illegal immigrants and years of government inaction that has allowed that population to swell to some 12 million people.

Arellano had entered the country illegally twice before her 2002 arrest. She was convicted of using a fake Social Security number while working as an airplane cleaner at O'Hare International Airport.

She had been scheduled to report to U.S. authorities last August. Instead, Arellano, a single mother, took refuge inside the church, announcing she wanted to fight to raise her son in the country of his birth.

"If my son was 21, and if this government still did not want me to stay in this country, I would have said to him: 'You are old enough to make your own way and make your own decisions,' And I would have packed my suitcases and gone back to Mexico," Arellano said this week in a prepared statement while announcing her intention to go to Washington. "But he is not yet an adult and I have the responsibility to protect and prepare him for the life in this country he has a right to as a U.S. citizen."

Emma Lozano, one of Arellano's closest advisers, would not confirm Arellano was en route to Los Angeles, though she had flown there herself Friday.

"As far as I know, she is still . . . she is in sanctuary," Lozano said in a telephone interview. Plans are still in place for Arellano to be in Washington next month, she said.

Later Friday, the Associated Press reported Lozano had confirmed Arellano's departure from Chicago for the Los Angeles rally.

Some immigrant activists have argued against highlighting Arellano's story, disturbed by the frequent use of Saul in speeches and marches and worried other cases are being overshadowed.

In leaving her church and adopting the role of just another activist speaking at the podium, Arellano loses some of her symbolic resonance, particularly if she gets arrested on some lonely road and never makes it to Washington, said Jorge Mujica, one of the lead organizers of several massive immigration marches that have occurred in Chicago. Mujica said he expects Arellano and her supporters could find themselves isolated from the wider immigration rights movement.

"They are going to enjoy by themselves the victory or the defeat of this," Mujica said.

aolivo@tribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... &cset=true

What a soap opera.

Now some immigrant activist are turning

against her.Probably jealous of the press

she gets.


Rosa Parks was a hero.....

Elvira is just a Illegal Con Artist Fugitive

Felon running from the law..........

Stay Tuned hopefully for the final Chapter

Her Capture and Deportation in front

of cheering crowds