Thread: Boy, fighting for his mom, wins hearts in immigration battle

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,, ... ss&feed=12

Pair become public face of debate as Congress prepares to vote on guest worker bill

Thursday June 7, 2007
The Guardian

Saul Arellano is highly skilled at lucha libre, the free wrestling style practised across Latin America. The eight-year-old has a stack of lucha libre toys and carries his favourite around with him, waging imaginary fights in the church.

For more than nine months Saul and his mother, Elvira, have been engaged in a prolonged and all too real wrestling match. They have become the public face of the debate currently consuming the US Congress over what to do with the country's illegal immigrants.

Since August, they have been living in "sanctuary" in the Adalberto United Methodist church, behind an unassuming shop-front in Chicago. The church is shielding Ms Arellano symbolically, if not legally, from the reach of immigration officials. They want to deport her as one of the 12 million undocumented immigrants, more than half of whom come, like her, from Mexico.
Ms Arellano crossed into the US in 1997, walking brazenly through a border checkpoint on her second attempt, before travelling to Washington state, where she began working in a laundry. She started to send $200 (£100) a month back to her parents in Mexico to help pay medical costs for her father, who has muscular dystrophy.

Saul also represents a significant statistic in the debate. He is one of at least 3 million children with illegal immigrant parents who were born in America and are US citizens enjoying full rights.

When immigration enforcement officers served Ms Arellano with deportation documents last August, she had a choice: go back to Mexico with her son, taking him away from his own country; leave Saulito - as he is known - behind with a relative or friend, a form of separation that has split thousands of Latino families; or take refuge in the church, and continue the wrestling match.

"If it was just about me, I would sooner have gone back to my own country rather than being treated like a criminal," Ms Arellano said. "But this is all about Saulito. He is an American, but they are treating him as a second-class citizen. My son needs to know he is a child of God and not a piece of garbage."

Ms Arellano approached the Reverend Walter Coleman, the pastor of her church in a heavily Mexican and Puerto Rican neighbourhood of Chicago. On August 15 last year - the day of her expected deportation - she and Saulito took up residence on the second floor of the church. Elvira hasn't set foot outside the church since that day.

Saulito, on the other hand, is free to move around and has travelled thousands of miles acting as his mother's ambassador, with Mr Coleman as guardian. He has addressed rallies outside the White House, in Los Angeles, Boston and in Miami, a couple of days after an immigration raid saw the arrest of 1,300 undocumented Latino factory workers.

The boy and his pastor have travelled across Texas - a particularly sensitive state because of its long border with Mexico and George Bush's roots there.

And Saulito caused a sensation in Mexico when he addressed its parliament and, amid a swarm of press photographers, persuaded politicians from all parties to back a resolution calling on the US government to desist from deporting his mother.

The publicity that such a small, quietly spoken child has attracted across the country has played its part in bringing immigration back to centre stage. It has helped to spawn a new "sanctuary movement", with churches in 16 states, in cities including Los Angeles, Seattle, San Diego and New York, offering protection to other immigrants.

Legally, there are no grounds for religious sanctuary under the US constitution, with its strict separation of church and state. But nor does there appear to be any eagerness on the part of federal immigration authorities to court the kind of PR that would ensue were uniformed officers sent storming into a place of worship.

Ms Arellano has been told that officials will come to get her at a moment of their choosing, but so far they have kept a wary distance.

The Arellanos have had to deal with the inevitable backlash. Anti-immigration groups have latched on to her high-profile case and accused her of using Saulito as a so-called "anchor baby" to keep her in the US.

John Keeley, of the Washington-based Centre for Immigration Studies, which advocates the gradual eviction of illegal immigrants, said that "in the US, irrespective of one's ethnicity, we have the expectation that parents act in the best interests of their child. To subject a minor to the daily risk of action by US immigration agents is hardly good parenting."

Such conflicting views of illegal immigration have reached the top of the political agenda. A debate in the Senate is due to come to a head this week over a bill that would attempt to address the immigration crisis. Under its terms, legal status would be extended to most of the 12 million illegal immigrants who entered before January 1 this year in exchange for fines and security checks. The border with Mexico would also be reinforced to prevent a fresh wave of illegal immigration, while preference would be given to skilled professionals under a guest worker programme rather than to the extended families of existing US citizens as in the past.

The bill is backed by President Bush and a powerful group of senators from both parties. It also has the backing of most Americans, according to a recent poll for CBS television that found that 62% of respondents felt that illegal immigrants who had been in the US for more than two years should be allowed to apply for legal status.

But it has brought opposition from both the right, protesting about the legalisation of so many millions, and the left, which dislikes the emphasis on guest workers rather than families. The bill faces resistance from many Republicans in the Senate who are trying to clog up its passage with amendments, and a similarly difficult time lies ahead in the House of Representatives.

Until the final details of the proposed legislation are known, Elvira Arellano has no idea whether she will benefit from it. At the time she was first arrested she was working as a cleaner in Chicago's O'Hare international airport - federal property, which means she committed a felony and that in turn excludes her under the current wording of the bill.

Whatever Congress does, Saulito is clear that he doesn't want to go to Mexico, a country he barely knows. "My home is here. My school is here. My friends. I won't know my language no more, I would just have to be talking in Spanish, not English."

Ms Arellano has vowed to carry on campaigning until the positive contribution that she and the other undocumented immigrants have made is recognised. "For more than two decades the government has accepted our cheap labour, our taxes, our social security payments, but oh no, they didn't want to legalise us."

So for the time being, her home will continue to be in the confined space of the Adalberto church.

It is sad how people will use their children to further their own agenda.

Peope like this criminal have no shame whatsoever, all they care about is their own concerns. She has shown no concern for the laws of this country, repeatedly breaking laws in her repeated illegal entry, her use of stolen SS# to get a job illegally. Not to mention her having a child here illegitimately, most likely a deliberate act to use a tool, an anchor to keep herself from being deported as she should have been. Invaders like this repeat criminal represent exactly why we need to keep our borders secure, enforce our laws and eliminate anchor baby citizenship, to protect us from totally selfish and despicable people like her.

...borders secure, enforce our laws and eliminate anchor baby citizenship, to protect us from totally selfish and despicable people like her.

We must also eliminate automatic citizenship by birth to protect children against being used for this purpose. People having kids they cant support just to change their immigration status is dispicable. It will also damage these children. Some who are being deported are dumping these children now. This should not be allowed.

Sob.

And AFDC"Aid for dependent children". And WIC. "women, infants and children" Free or low cost daycare......And anything else that is free that we provide.........

her son is a child of God no matter what country he lives in. location has nothing to do with that! and just as an aside where is the dad in this?

Something that struck me when I was reading this article was the issue of this kids education. He's traveling around giving speaches and testifying before government commitees. Why is he not in school?

We have laws in this country against child exploitation, child labor, truancy, and a host of others. These laws were put in place to protect children from various forms of abuse and exploitation. What happened to these laws? Were they suddenly suspended? Was there some new rule that was enacted that we missed that allows a child to postpone his education while campaigning?

Usually the democrats are telling us how they were instrumental in enacting the laws that I mentioned above. They tell us that it was because of them that we don't have child labor exploiting our kids. They tell us that they did all of the heavy lifting to ensure that all children receive an adequate education. Yet here they are, exploiting a child for political gain. I am betting that he is not being paid for his time either.

Isn't it funny that those who claim to be interested in this kids welfare, don't seem to care about his education? Where are the officials for Health and Human Services, DEFAX, WIC, etc.? For that matter where is the local truancy officer?

BOO HOO

Something that struck me when I was reading this article was the issue of this kids education. He's traveling around giving speaches and testifying before government commitees. Why is he not in school?

We have laws in this country against child exploitation, child labor, truancy, and a host of others. These laws were put in place to protect children from various forms of abuse and exploitation. What happened to these laws? Were they suddenly suspended? Was there some new rule that was enacted that we missed that allows a child to postpone his education while campaigning?

I posted the identical thought a few months back. Yet "Smellvira" claims to love this child who she bred and birthed for the sole purpose of pimping the 14th Amendment and a free ride in the US AFTER HER FIRST DEPORTATION.