http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 79748.html

A boy's fight for family unity
4/2/07

Understandably, 8-year-old Saul Arellano has trouble sitting still — especially during lengthy forums where the adults talk about immigration reform — even if he is the one in the spotlight.

For the past half-year, Saul has been on a quest to save his mother, Elvira Arellano, from deportation — visiting and urging lawmakers in Washington, D.C., and in Mexico to allow parents who are undocumented immigrants to remain in the country with their U.S.-born children.

Elvira Arellano has taken sanctuary in a Chicago church for the past six months, defying an order to appear in immigration court.

Her son, meanwhile, has become his mother's ambassador, a poster child who traveled to San Antonio, Austin and Houston over the weekend with immigrant-rights activists who run the church he also calls home.

The second-grader is shy at times.

His interest of the day was getting in playtime at Chuck E. Cheese's, but he repeated his simple message during two forums in Houston on Sunday: "I want to tell President Bush to stop the raids and deportations so my mother and other families can stay here in the United States," the boy said in Spanish before returning to a comfortable seat beneath a table in front of a crowded room.

The Rev. Walter Coleman and his wife, Emma Lozano, traveled with "Saulito," as he is called, to Texas at the request of activists here.

Coleman said: "Texas is probably one of the most important states in the country in terms of the issue of immigration reform," given U.S. Sen. John Cornyn's stance on immigration reform, which he believes "represents the voice of the White House."

According to the Associated Press, a White House draft of immigration legislation that circulated around Capitol Hill last week includes border security measures and a guest-worker program that would provide a pathway to legal residency for illegal immigrants after they've returned to their home country and paid hefty fines.

Activists say that if legislation is not passed within the next few months, there likely will be no action taken until a new president takes office.


False documents
Elvira Arellano was arrested during a post-Sept. 11 sweep of Chicago's O'Hare airport, where she was working under a fake Social Security number.
She was named one of Time magazine's 2006 People Who Mattered.

Elvira Arellano and her son are "responding to the 4 million children who, every day when they come home, don't know if their families are going to be there," Coleman told a group of 150 that gathered at St. Albert of Trapani Catholic Church in southwest Houston.

Saul also visited the Central American Resource Center here.

Although immigration enforcement activists disagree, Lozano said,"Saul represents 4 million U.S.-citizen children who have a right to grow up in the country."

Jose Luis and Leticia Martinez attended one of the community forums with their three children to see the boy who's made international headlines.

While his oldest daughter was born in Mexico, his two youngest children are U.S. citizens, so "we identify," Jose Luis Martinez said.

"It's something that could happen to us."

cynthia.garza@chron.com