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Church closes off its doors to activist's debate
Pastor denies entry for Sunday service


By Andrew L. Wang
Tribune staff reporter

August 28, 2006

In a scene filled with theatrics and rhetoric, an anti-immigration activist from Los Angeles was barred from entering Sunday services at a West Side church where Elvira Arellano, an illegal Mexican immigrant, has taken refuge from authorities.

Emblematic of the acrimony of the national debate over undocumented immigrants, half a dozen men stood abreast at the entrance of Adalberto United Methodist Church blocking Ted Hayes' entry as others banged drums to drown out his shouts.

"Behold I stand at the door and knock," Hayes called out repeatedly, his hand pumping in the air with a single pointed finger. "May I come to church please?"

One church member stood chest-to-chest with Hayes as others rained boos upon the homeless advocate who flew from the West Coast last week to protest Arellano's defiance of a government deportation order.

Arellano, 31, has drawn international attention during her nearly two-week stand in the church. She has been in the country illegally and was ordered deported. Arellano has resisted deportation because she says her 7-year-old son, Saul--an American citizen--would be left alone if she were sent back to Mexico.

Because Arellano ignored her deportation order, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement now considers her a fugitive. Last week attorneys filed a lawsuit on her son's behalf, charging that his rights would be violated if his mother were to be deported.

On Friday, Hayes asked Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of the storefront church at 2716 W. Division St., if he could attend the noon service Sunday. Coleman gave him no answer, so Hayes decided to show up.

When Hayes arrived, Coleman "straight up told me that I'm not coming in," he said.

Hayes works with the homeless in L.A. and is affiliated with the Minutemen, an anti-illegal immigration group.

With his arguments wending through discussions of slavery, the 14th Amendment and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Hayes said he came from California to protest because "what this woman, these people are doing is killing my people."

"They're taking our heritage," said Hayes, who is black. "They're taking my civil rights. They're taking my icons, like Rosa Parks and Dr. King.

"These people were citizens. This lady's no citizen. She's a criminal."

Arellano was criticized recently after she compared herself to Parks, the black Alabama seamstress who refused to give her bus seat to a white man in 1955.

Hayes said Arellano should go back to Mexico and protest for reform of the government there, which he called corrupt.

After the two-hour service, Coleman said he didn't want Hayes at the service because he didn't want to create more volatility.

"He's a provocateur," Coleman said, "and his aim and the aim of the Minutemen is to create a violent situation inside the church."

Arellano was aware of the confrontation outside but said she paid Hayes no heed.

"I have no opinion on him," she said after the service. "I don't want to waste my energy on such a negative person."

Outside, the sidewalk was quiet, the silence broken only by the sounds of cars and several men playing dominoes nearby.

About an hour earlier, after he was rejected at the door, Hayes leaned against a tree and stared at the ground in front of the church, a duct-taped Bible in his leathery hands.

After chatting with a few passersby, he got into the car of the lone Illinois Minuteman member who joined him Sunday. Within moments, Hayes was gone.

And the doors to the church, shut tight to keep him out, opened again.

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alwang@tribune.com