Chicago Indymedia : http://chicago.indymedia.org/archive
Chicago Indymedia

LOCAL News :: Protest Activity

Local Immigrant Rights Activist Elvira Arrellano Anounces Plans To Head To Washington

Elvira Arellano, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who has been hiding out in a westside Chicago church in defiance of a deportation order for the past year announced plans Wednesday to leave the confines of the church and head to Washington, D.C.
Elvira Arellano, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who has been hiding out in a westside Chicago church in defiance of a deportation order for the past year announced plans Wednesday to leave the confines of the church and head to Washington, D.C.

Arellano added fuel to the immigration debate on August 15, 2006, when she announced her intention to resist flawed U.S. immigration laws and seek sanctuary in Adalberto United Methodist Church, in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood. The move, according to Arellano, was an effort to remain in the U.S. with her son, Saul, a legal citizen by birth.

Arellano has since become a figurehead of the immigrant rights movement and the founder of Families United, an organization that works to draw attention to the plight of families struggling to stay together despite mixed legal status. She has also become a lightning rod for critics, such as conservative talk show host Lou Dobbs, who have charged her with exploiting her son's citizenship for personal gain.

Arellano announced Wednesday at a press conference that she will continue to advocate for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the nation's capitol. "I'm not going to stay quiet, nor wait for them to come to arrest me and deport me. I have to fight and this is part of the fight," she said.

After the Senate failed to pass a bipartisan bill in June that would have offered a path to legalization for parents in Arellano's position, the executive branch clamped down on enforcement of existing laws with more workplace raids, higher penalties against employers who hire illegal workers and a vamped up efforts to track down and detain undocumented immigrants.

Although it is not clear exactly when Arellano and her son will leave Chicago, she said that she will participate in a vigil on the Mall facing the capitol building on Sept. 12, a day that organizers have chosen for a national economic boycott . She said that her presence there will "not be a challenge" to authorities, but rather a way to draw attention to a crisis that legislators "haven't wanted to solve."

Arellano was arrested in 2002 during an immigration raid at O'Hare International Airport, where she worked cleaned airplanes. She was convicted of using a fake Social Security number.

Immigration officials, who are not legally prohibited from arresting Arellano during her stay in the church, have been reluctant to take any action or comment on the case.
 
 

Donate

Views

Account Login

Media Centers

 

This site made manifest by dadaIMC software