Arellano, son will live separately
BACK IN MEXICO | Activist vows 'to continue fighting'

August 21, 2007

TIJUANA, Mexico -- Elvira Arellano was reunited here with her 8-year-old son Monday, but the illegal immigrant and activist said the boy will return to Chicago to live with his godmother and begin third grade.

''We've all been living together. He knows his mom is OK. He's going to be sad sometimes,'' said Emma Lozano, the godmother and an activist in her own right.

Lozano drove 8-year-old Saul from Los Angeles to Tijuana, where Elvira Arellano is staying with a friend after being deported from the United States to Mexico.

Elvira Arellano, 32, took refuge for a year in a church in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born son.

In that time, she became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents as she defied her deportation order and spoke out from her sanctuary. She left the Adalberto United Methodist Church last week. Arellano had just spoken at a Los Angeles rally when she was arrested Sunday and deported, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist.

''They were in a hurry to deport me because they saw that I was threatening to mobilize and organize the people to fight for legalization,'' Arellano said in Spanish outside the Tijuana apartment building where she was staying. ''I have a fighting spirit and I'm going to continue fighting.''

Saul may tour U.S.

Arellano said she may return to her home in the Mexican state of Michoacan and then return to Tijuana in September for a demonstration coinciding with planned immigration protests in the United States.
Lozano said Arellano's son may tour the U.S. to promote immigrant rights. The boy declined to talk to a reporter.

Chris Bergin, Arellano's immigration attorney, said Arellano had signed a power of attorney document giving Lozano authority to make legal decisions for Saul.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services said it did not foresee any intervention because there was no record of prior contact with the Arellano family.

"Private custody arrangements happen every day," said a spokesman. "There's always an understanding with those kinds of things."

Mexican authorities did not know the identity or whereabouts of the boy's father, said Luis Cabrera, Mexico's consul general in San Diego.

Opponents of illegal immigration said Arellano's arrest was overdue, and a U.S. immigration official said she had been a criminal fugitive.

Mexican authorities said the deportation highlighted a need to overhaul U.S. immigration laws.

''It's tragic when a mother is separated from her son,'' Cabrera said.

She's no martyr: feds

Jim Hayes, director of ICE in Los Angeles, said ''proper perspective'' should be placed on the woman's case. Using a false identity -- as in the case of Arellano, who was convicted of using someone else's Social Security number -- can be a threat to national security, he said.
''We don't think she's a martyr,'' Hayes said. ''She was a criminal fugitive who is in violation of the law.''

Arellano arrived in Washington state illegally in 1997. She soon was deported to Mexico, but returned and moved to Illinois in 2000, taking a job cleaning planes at O'Hare Airport.

She was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare and convicted of working under a false Social Security number. She was to surrender to authorities a year ago but instead sought refuge at the church.

Immigration activists said they will continue Arellano's plan to go to Washington, D.C., and take part in a prayer meeting and rally for immigration reform on Sept. 12. They also called for a national boycott on that date.

The sentiment was echoed outside an ICE office in Chicago on Monday.

''Her voice will not be silenced,'' activist Jacobita Alonzo told a crowd of about 50 supporters.

AP, with Esther J. Cepeda contributing from Chicago

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