Originally posted: August 16, 2006
Happy martyr's day

Every hour that officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (known by its baad acronym, ICE) delay in entering Chicago's Adalberto Memorial United Methodist Church and arresting Elvira Arellano is another hour that her legend grows, another hour that lends credence to her claim that a church offers special protections to a fugitive, another hour that fuels the idea that the person who shouts the loudest and whips up the most public support gets the best deal.

As our story, "Activist defies deportation, takes refuge in church" explains, Elvira Arellano, 31, a national spokeswoman for families facing deportation, is more or less defying ICE to enter "a holy place" to arrest and deport her for crimes related to her status as an illegal immigrant.

I suppose it's fitting that the government appears hesitant, indecisive and even fearful on a matter relating to illegal immigration. Our leaders can't summon the political will to secure our borders and enforce our laws or lead a drive to build a new consensus to reform those laws.

But a protracted standoff -- similar to the battle over 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez six years ago in Miami -- simply inflames the partisans and makes compromise and progress more difficult.

Arellano is not going to surrender and her supporters assure us that they intend her arrest to appear chaotic for the video cameras. ICE might as well act now.

Waiting several days for all the cable news outlets to set up tents near Division and California and begin saturation coverage of the "Vigil for Elvira" or whatever they'll call will only make it uglier, more painful, more divisive, more distracting.

I'm sure immigrants rights groups feel they will benefit by the attempt to turn Arellano into a martyr. Already we are hearing supporters compare her to Rosa Parks, the black woman whose act of civil disobedience-- in 1955 she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man -- sparked the civil rights movement.

But Parks was defying an unjust and immoral law -- a judgment that history has validated. And I have yet to hear a coherent argument that says justice and morality demand that otherwise law-abiding people who manage to sneak into the United States have a right to remain here.

I've heard good arguments that it's in our best interests as a nation to create a "path to citizenship" or at least a robust guest-worker program for those who are here illegally; that immigrants enrich us culturally and economically so our laws should be more welcoming.

But Arellano's defiance -- such as her proclamation that her arrest and deportation will serve to illustrate "the hatred and hypocrisy of the current administration"-- retards those arguments. It's imbued with a sense of entitlement that many Americans -- I'll guess most -- find very off-putting.

In that way she's not like Rosa Parks, she's like Cindy Sheehan, the Gold Star mother who camped out near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, last August demanding to meet with him to discuss the war in Iraq where her son, Casey, had died. A good woman, no doubt. Well-meaning. Sympathetic. Not a threat to society.

But her vigil was predicated on a proposition that was iffy at best -- that families of dead soldiers ought to have a greater say in the conduct of military affairs and have special access to our leaders.

Similarly, Arellano seems like a good person, and everyone who loves this country must sympathize at some level with her desire to stay here.

But her refusal to surrender is predicated on an iffy proposition of its own -- that because she's been in the U.S. for 9 years, her 7-year-old son is a citizen, she's a well-known activist with lots of supporters, and hundreds of thousands of other illegals aren't being deported, she should get a pass on being subject to the law.

The additional proposition, that a church building creates some invisible barrier to the enforcement of the law, is downright offensive to our Constitution.

One can reject those propositions without rejecting the idea of reforming our immigration policies in ways that nurture the dreams of the Elvira Arellano's of the world.

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Comments
Forget about Elvira Arellano , what's with your picture on top of the Blog? Are you going respectful on us? Let us know.

ZORN -- The Man made me change it back...

Posted by: | Aug 16, 2006 1:48:47 PM


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I think that to non-citizens of the US this is a situation that brings out the very heart of the issue of immigration, legal or illegal. It is an us and them mentality that is so easy for Americans to adopt because everyone wants to come here and we feel powerful by asserting our control over access to our country. Arellano's specific case is a nearly indefensible one. If we want to remain a civil society we must enforce our laws and do our best to maintain order. That does not mean that our laws are morally correct, but due process must be followed to change them.

The larger issue at stake here is the dehumanizing attitude that Americans take by feeling entitled to the privileges awarded to us by virtue of being born in a specific place and time. We should all take a moment to realize that many things in this life, including our citizenship, are not a product of our choices or accomplishments. The reason this issue is so divisive is because one side of the argument feels like their entitlement and privilege is threatened and the other feels that they are somehow less than human in our eyes.

We should all work harder to be understanding and act and speak with sensitivity to the issue. We are all human beings equally endowed by our creator.

Posted by: Devin Chesney | Aug 16, 2006 2:04:07 PM


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Alot of the comments I see here seem to coming from people that are so stuck on their "white" power and resemble the racism that created the civil rights movement.

Lets not forget who founded this great land!

Also, think about it for a second:
Who cooks your dinners at the restaurants, who fixes your car, who washes your car, etc, etc. AMERICA IS THE LAND OF THE IMMIGRANTS!

Posted by: Concerned Chicago citizen | Aug 16, 2006 2:10:15 PM


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No, my lot in life isn't totally the result of my own efforts. I'm especially lucky these days that my grandparents chose to leave Lebanon around 1900 and immigrate (legally) to the U.S. But Devin forgets that the U.S., or Lebanon, or Mexico don't just happen either. They are what they are largely because of the choices that the inhabitants made. Mexico, for example, has the 14th largest GDP in the world, so isn't a "poor" country, even though much of its population lives in poverty. Do you really think Mexicans would want to live in the American SW today IF Mexico still owned it and ruled it the way it does present day Mexcio? Somehow, I suspect they'd still be heading to Georgia, or Chicago.

Posted by: Ali | Aug 16, 2006 2:14:59 PM

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_co ... .html#more

I suggest you go to the link and read the rest of the Comments, it will do your heart good!