Arellano hurts her cause
Eric Zorn
August 19, 2007
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/colu ... 919.column

Elvira Arellano is practically begging U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to arrest her already so she can reignite her stalled effort to become the Rosa Parks of immigration reform.

Last week, she left the West Side storefront church in which for just over a year she has claimed sanctuary from efforts to enforce a deportation order against her. She appears headed for protest rallies, first in Los Angeles and then in Washington D.C. I offered the view online that arresting her after she leaves the church will only seem to validate her constitutionally bogus claim of sanctuary, and that ICE, having blown the chance in August 2006, to act swiftly and decisively, should simply continue to ignore her.



This touched off an utterly predictable and overwhelming explosion of furious, indignant comments from readers who've never stopped being exercised about Arellano's defiance and ICE's seeming cowardly impotence. This got me to thinking: Maybe authorities aren't at all afraid or impotent. Maybe they're keenly aware of Arellano's symbolic value and have been using her to maintain and nurture outrage among those who are pressing for stronger enforcement of immigration laws. Arresting and deporting this harmless woman would simply play into her fantasies of martyrdom and, for all the inevitable fuss, produce a mere one-twelve-millionth reduction in the illegal immigrant population.

By not arresting her, ICE, intentionally or not, keeps passions high among those pushing for far stricter overall enforcement of our immigration laws. Every day she is free, she harms her cause a little more.