Thread: Immigrant Activist's Deportation Stirs Both Sides of Border

Immigrant Activist's Deportation Stirs Both Sides of the Border

The deportation of an illegal immigrant from Mexico who spent over a year under the protection of a Methodist church has revived calls from both sides of the border for changes to U.S. immigration laws.

Thu, Aug. 23, 2007 Posted: 09:29:47 AM EST
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20 ... Border.htm


Activists and others appear to support the cause of Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was arrested and deported Sunday, at a news conference at Los Angeles' Plaza Church Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007. From left are Alfred Falcon-Colin of the Consejo de Federaciones Mexicanas en Norteamerica (COFEM), Hee Joo Yoon of the Korean Resource Center, Angela Sanbrano of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, and Javier Rodriguez of the March 25 Coalition. Arellano has been promoting an overhaul to U.S. immigration laws from inside a Chicago church where she sought refuge to avoid being separated from her 8-year-old, U.S.-born son.

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The deportation of an illegal immigrant from Mexico who spent over a year under the protection of a Methodist church has revived calls from both sides of the border for changes to U.S. immigration laws.

On Wednesday, a Mexican Senate committee passed a measure urging President Felipe Calderon to send a diplomatic note to the United States protesting the deportation of 32-year-old Elvira Arellano, who became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents by defying her deportation order and speaking out from her sanctuary in the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago.

The committee also approved a scholarship to help her 8-year-old U.S.-born son, Saul, who is an American citizen and stayed in the United States.

"We cannot remain quiet in view of this injustice and must ask for firm action from our authorities," Mexican Sen. Humberto Zazue said, according to The Associated Press.

On Sunday, shortly after she spoke at an immigrant rights rally in Our Lady Queen of Angels Church, also known as La Placita, in Los Angeles, Arellano was arrested and deported to Tijuana, across the border from San Diego.

The immigration activist made the trip to California – the first time she emerged from her Chicago Methodist sanctuary since she sought refuge in Aug. 15, 2006 – to attend the rally and to speak at several churches.

“She has been deported. She is free and in Tijuana,â€

In my strange and twisted musings in stories like these, all I can wonder is...

How would things be painted differently had the Social Security Number which Elvira worked under been that of "Eric Young" - the author of the story...

That SSN could have been his, yours, mine ...