Aug 18, 2007 8:50 pm US/Pacific

Chicago Immigration Activist A No-Show At LA Rally

(AP) LOS ANGELES An illegal immigrant who left the protection of a Chicago church for the first time in more than a year was in Los Angeles Saturday to campaign for immigration reform, saying she chose to "stay and fight."

Elvira Arellano, speaking at a downtown church, said she was not afraid of being taken into custody by immigration agents. She sought sanctuary in the Chicago church to avoid deportation and separation from her 8-year-old American son.

"From the time I took sanctuary the possibility has existed that they arrest me in the place and time they want," she said in Spanish. "I only have two choices. I either go to my country, Mexico, or stay and keep fighting. I decided to stay and fight."

Arellano, 32, and other activists want lawmakers to place a moratorium on deportations and hammer out reforms that would allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the country, at least temporarily.

"We cannot wait for another election," she said. "We can't wait, sitting with our arms crossed, while our families are being separated."

As Arellano spoke her son, Saul, took part in a small immigration reform rally by activists a few miles away at City Hall.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials declined to discuss their operations, but no uniformed agents appeared to be present at the church or rally.

Local church officials said Arellano planned to visit and pray Sunday with the families of four other people who are staying in sanctuary churches in Los Angeles, then head back East.

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

She was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare and later convicted of working under a false Social Security number. She was to surrender to authorities last August.

She sought sanctuary on Aug. 15, 2006, at Adalberto United Methodist Church. She had not left the church property until deciding to be driven to Los Angeles, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of the storefront church on Chicago's West Side.


(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. )

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_230013733.html