LA Immigration protest draws light crowd
Immigration protest draws light crowd
Daily News Wire Service
Article Last Updated: 08/18/2007 05:09:29 PM PDT
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Demonstrators chant during a pro-immigrant rights march and rally Saturday...
A small, well-behaved crowd marched to Los Angeles City Hall on Saturday to protest immigration policies and hear from a woman who took refuge in a Chicago church to avoid being deported.
Elvira Arellano told reporters at Los Angeles' La Placita Church downtown after the rally that her future "is in the hands of God."
She has defied an order to report to the Department of Homeland Security to be deported a year ago, instead taking refuge in the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago's Humboldt Park district.
Arellano was joined by her son Saul, 8.
Arellano has said she sought to remain in this country so her son, born in the United States and a citizen under provisions of the 14th Amendment, can get better medical care for his attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Arellano first came to the United States in 1997 and was deported to Mexico shortly afterward. She returned and moved to Illinois in 2000, taking a job cleaning planes at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
Arellano was arrested in 2002 and later convicted of working under a false Social Security number, prompting the order for her to be deported.
Arellano's supporters have likened her to Rosa
Parks, whose refusal to give up her seat in a Montgomery, Ala., bus in 1955 helped spark the Civil Rights Movement.
Some African American activists have criticized that comparison.
Arellano announced plans this week to travel to Washington Sept. 12 to pray and attempt to persuade lawmakers to pass an immigration bill.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials played their hand close to the vest, and followed policies that do not allow them to talk about their operations in advance.
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