Judge dismisses immigration activist's suit
By Jeff Coen
Tribune staff reporter
Published September 29, 2006, 8:15 PM CDT
A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed on behalf of the young son of a woman who fled to a Humboldt Park church after the government ordered her deportation to Mexico.
The pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church, Rev. Walter Coleman, had filed a suit contending that 7-year-old Saul Arellano's rights would be violated if his mother, Elvira Arellano, were deported.
U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve sided with the government, which had argued that the child's rights would not be violated and that allowing his mother to stay would grant his mother an extra benefit. Saul is a U.S. citizen by birth.
"The court concludes that, because the pending removal order does not have any legal effect on Saul's right to remain in the United States, Saul will not suffer an injury to his constitutional rights when that order is executed," the judge wrote.
"Put differently, the pending removal order does not prevent Saul from exercising his rights of citizenship. This is not to say that Saul will not suffer a hardship; undoubtedly, he will."
St. Eve wrote that the question before her was whether that hardship was of "constitutional magnitude," and she found that it was not.
Coleman's attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.
Elvira Arellano took refuge in the church after defying an Aug. 15 deportation order. She had been denied a stay of the order while the case was heard.
Observers of the immigration debate had said the suit had the potential to affect the more than 3 million children in the U.S. in a situation similar to Saul's.
But St. Eve found that in prior cases, the courts have explained that "a removal order does not impinge on constitutional rights because a citizen child remains free to exercise his right to live in the United States."
Prosecutors had argued it was hypocritical for Elvira Arellano to run for protection under the law while knowingly violating it.
"Ms. Arellano should not be permitted to ignore the law and yet use the law through the means of a legal fiction by challenging the order through her son," prosecutors had argued.
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