House panel to discuss immigration

By Emma Graves Fitzsimmons | Tribune staff reporter
10:15 PM CDT, August 25, 2007
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... ports_util

Re-energized by the arrest of Elvira Arellano, immigrant advocates in Illinois said Saturday that they hope a congressional hearing next month will involve discussion on ways to keep families together despite the failure to approve immigration reform legislation in June.

The couple caring for Arellano's son in Chicago since her Aug. 19 arrest in Los Angeles discussed the details of her cross-country trip to drum up support for reviving the issue when Congress returns from recess.

Rev. Walter Coleman said Arellano helped to reunify the movement that now will focus its attention on a Sept. 6 hearing before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Immigration.

"We had to get the discussion going again and take another try at legislation that would at least give relief to the 12 million undocumented immigrants if comprehensive reform is no longer possible," said Coleman, who leads Adalberto United Methodist Church. For a year, Arellano sought sanctuary in the church with her 8-year-old son, Saul, who is a U.S. citizen.

Three days after Arellano's arrest, Coleman met with the staff of U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the immigration subcommittee, to push for the hearing.

Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, is expected to testify before the subcommittee as is Chicago resident Tony Wasilewski, whose wife was deported to Poland this summer.

Some call Arellano a hero, but others say she deserved to be deported because she broke the law and consider her as an imperfect face for the cause.

efitzsimmons@tribune.com