Thread: IMMIGRATION RIGHTS ACTIVIST ARRESTED, AND DEPORTED

Immigration Rights Activist Elvira Arellano Arrested, Deported

Last Edited: Monday, 20 Aug 2007, 1:04 AM PDT
Created: Sunday, 19 Aug 2007, 4:13 PM PDT


In this booking photo released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, shown is Elvira Arellano after she was arrested Sunday, Aug. 19, 2007, in Los Angeles. Arellano was arrested outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church on L.A.'s historic Olvera Street where she had been speaking to reporters, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago where she sought sanctuary last year. (AP Photo/Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Los Angeles --

Immigration agents deported to Tijuana an illegal immigrant who took refuge in a Chicago church, the church's pastor, the Rev. Walter Coleman, told The Associated Press late Sunday.

A message left with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials late Sunday was not immediately returned.

Elvira Arellano was arrested Sunday afternoon outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church on L.A.'s historic Olvera Street. She was deported several hours later, said Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano had taken refuge.

"She has been deported. She is free and in Tijuana," said Coleman, who said he spoke to her on the phone. "She is in good spirits. She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."

Arellano, 32, has become a symbol of the struggles of illegal immigrant parents and a source of controversy. She had said Saturday she was not afraid of being taken into custody by immigration agents.

"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 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 convicted of working under a false Social Security number. She was to surrender to authorities last August.

She sought refuge at the storefront church on Chicago's West Side Aug. 15, 2006. She had not left the church property until deciding to be driven to Los Angeles, Coleman said.

http://www.myfoxla.com/myfox/pages/News ... geId=3.2.1

• Video (8/19): Arellano Arrest + Local Community Reaction

• Video (8/19): Arellano Arrest Press Conference - Rev. Walter Coleman

• Video (8/19): Chicago Latino Community Reacts to Arellano Arrest


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If they can pick up an illegal alien and deport him/her in less than 12 hours, why the hell were Bush and Chertzky saying it is impossible to deport illegals already here??? At this rate, they should be able to deport thousands per month!

I hope this is not just a circus show.

This is the best news I have heard in a long time. I hope this makes others self deport.

If they can pick up an illegal alien and deport him/her in less than 12 hours, why the hell were Bush and Chertzky saying it is impossible to deport illegals already here??? At this rate, they should be able to deport thousands per month!

ICE needs more agents and more funding so they can begin to clean our country up. After all they and their kids have to live here too.

GO ICE!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy overdue!

No they should make sure that her son won't be able to sponsor mom once he becomes old enough.

Doing the dance of joy finally she's gone!

Yayyy!!!!! Doing the happy dance myself!!

I'm just glad they picked her up the second she stepped outside the church. She knew she couldn't stay there forever!!

Just watch -- she'll either continue to fight her "cause" from Mexico, or sneak back over the border once again and go underground. I'm sure she'll have plenty of "sponsors" to pay the coyote to get her back over here.

I'm just glad she's almost gone!! We need thousands more of these!!

TexasGal

NA NA NA NA... NA NA NA NA

HEY HEY HEY

GOODBYE!

It is good - it is the right thing - I somehow wonder if all this was for show, orchestrated to bring to a head the question of deportations of parents of anchor babies.

She could be the case that decides this for ever - and that may have been planned.