Despite deportation, activist in spotlight of reform efforts/Arellano, son will live separately/Arellano: Return to U.S. unlikely/Arellano to LA
Despite deportation, activist in spotlight of reform efforts - Arellano a celebrity for those pushing for immigration law change
By Antonio Olivo and Oscar Avila, Tribune staff reporters: Antonio Olivo reported from Tijuana, Mexico. Oscar Avila reported from Mexico City
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
August 22, 2007
TIJUANA, Mexico - Elvira Arellano has become a celebrity, with Mexican TV camera crews and news photographers following her Tuesday as if she were an actress in a hit soap opera instead of one of the thousands of recently deported illegal immigrants here.
After U.S. immigration authorities arrested her in Los Angeles on Sunday and escorted her to the border, she moved into in a dim apartment. But during short walks for food or toothpaste, between a stream of media interviews, her star power shined: "The people approach me and say: `Welcome to Mexico. Here you are in your home,'" she said.
"On the streets, everybody recognizes me," marveled Arellano, who lived for years in Chicago in obscurity, and spent most of the last year holed up in a Northwest Side church.
Mexican authorities and activists wasted no time in trying to capitalize on Arellano's new cachet, scrambling to align themselves with Arellano and gently suggesting what the newest chapter in her life should look like.
On Wednesday, Arellano, 32, plans to travel to Mexico City, where on Thursday she plans to stand with a group of Mexican congressmen to denounce the U.S. Congress for not passing more lenient immigration reforms.
Plans are also under way for Arellano to headline a Sept. 12 rally near Tijuana's border with California, an appearance meant to coincide with a demonstration planned in Washington. Before she was arrested, Arellano had hoped to culminate her cross-country trip with a prayer and fast vigil on that day on the National Mall.
Once those events are finished, Arellano said she intends to keep fighting for immigration reforms in the U.S. But she said she is still unsure whether her 8-year-old son, Saul, a U.S. citizen now back on that side of the border, will rejoin her in Mexico or stay with friends in Chicago to attend school. Saul's father has been out of the picture since before the child was born.
She seemed a little dazzled by the transition from her year in refuge at Adalberto United Methodist Church in Humboldt Park, to her quick dash to Los Angeles to campaign for "mixed-status" families like hers, to her newfound celebrity in Mexico.
"My thoughts are still a little confused," Arellano said in a rare quiet moment, as she stared out her window across a smog-choked street at a sign advertising English classes.
Others, however, were formulating an agenda for her.
Rosario Ibarra, a prominent human-rights activist in Mexico City, suggested that Arellano use her celebrity to chastise the Mexican government for not providing enough economic opportunities to keep its people in the country.
Raul Rios, a Mexican congressman from Arellano's home state of Michoacan, suggested she should push Mexican consulates in the U.S. to do more to help undocumented immigrants. "We should start by fixing our own house," Rios said, adding he helped to create a nonpartisan coalition on immigration issues to work with Arellano.
"Elvira is an example, not just for those who live in the United States but for immigrants all over the world," said Jose Jacques, a Mexican congressman from California. "I think she can convert herself into an icon for a struggle that is even more global, that addresses the root causes of migration."
Arellano said she plans to think things over during an upcoming trip to Michoacan, where she'll also look for a new school for Saul. While he has said he wants to live in Chicago, she said she's hoping her son will miss her enough to change his mind.
"I'm trying to respect his wishes," Arellano said, adding that he may still be traumatized by her arrest. "I don't want him to think that I'm forcing him to come here."
aolivo@tribune.com
oavila@tribune.com
Arellano, son will live separately - BACK IN MEXICO | Activist vows 'to continue fighting'
Copyright by The Associated Press
August 21, 2007
TIJUANA, Mexico -- Elvira Arellano was reunited here with her 8-year-old son Monday, but the illegal immigrant and activist said the boy will return to Chicago to live with his godmother and begin third grade.
''We've all been living together. He knows his mom is OK. He's going to be sad sometimes,'' said Emma Lozano, the godmother and an activist in her own right.
Lozano drove 8-year-old Saul from Los Angeles to Tijuana, where Elvira Arellano is staying with a friend after being deported from the United States to Mexico.
Elvira Arellano, 32, took refuge for a year in a church in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born son.
In that time, she became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents as she defied her deportation order and spoke out from her sanctuary. She left the Adalberto United Methodist Church last week. Arellano had just spoken at a Los Angeles rally when she was arrested Sunday and deported, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist.
''They were in a hurry to deport me because they saw that I was threatening to mobilize and organize the people to fight for legalization,'' Arellano said in Spanish outside the Tijuana apartment building where she was staying. ''I have a fighting spirit and I'm going to continue fighting.''
Saul may tour U.S.
Arellano said she may return to her home in the Mexican state of Michoacan and then return to Tijuana in September for a demonstration coinciding with planned immigration protests in the United States.
Lozano said Arellano's son may tour the U.S. to promote immigrant rights. The boy declined to talk to a reporter.
Chris Bergin, Arellano's immigration attorney, said Arellano had signed a power of attorney document giving Lozano authority to make legal decisions for Saul.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services said it did not foresee any intervention because there was no record of prior contact with the Arellano family.
"Private custody arrangements happen every day," said a spokesman. "There's always an understanding with those kinds of things."
Mexican authorities did not know the identity or whereabouts of the boy's father, said Luis Cabrera, Mexico's consul general in San Diego.
Opponents of illegal immigration said Arellano's arrest was overdue, and a U.S. immigration official said she had been a criminal fugitive.
Mexican authorities said the deportation highlighted a need to overhaul U.S. immigration laws.
''It's tragic when a mother is separated from her son,'' Cabrera said.
She's no martyr: feds
Jim Hayes, director of ICE in Los Angeles, said ''proper perspective'' should be placed on the woman's case. Using a false identity -- as in the case of Arellano, who was convicted of using someone else's Social Security number -- can be a threat to national security, he said.
''We don't think she's a martyr,'' Hayes said. ''She was a criminal fugitive who is in violation of the law.''
Arellano arrived in Washington state illegally in 1997. She soon was deported to Mexico, but returned and moved to Illinois in 2000, taking a job cleaning planes at O'Hare 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 a year ago but instead sought refuge at the church.
Immigration activists said they will continue Arellano's plan to go to Washington, D.C., and take part in a prayer meeting and rally for immigration reform on Sept. 12. They also called for a national boycott on that date.
The sentiment was echoed outside an ICE office in Chicago on Monday.
''Her voice will not be silenced,'' activist Jacobita Alonzo told a crowd of about 50 supporters.
Arellano: Return to U.S. unlikely - 'The only thing I can do is stay in Mexico,' deported illegal immigrant says
By Antonio Olivo
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
1:22 PM CDT, August 20, 2007
SAN DIEGO — Deported immigration activist Elvira Arellano said today that she will continue her fight for immigration reform, but she acknowledged she has little chance of returning to the United States.
"The only thing I can do is stay in Mexico," she told the Tribune in a telephone interview from Tijuana, Mexico, where she ended up after federal authorities handed her over to Mexican officials Sunday night.
Earlier, immigration officials confirmed that Arellano had been deported after her arrest on a downtown Los Angeles street Sunday afternoon after leaving her yearlong refuge in a Chicago church.
In today's interview, Arellano recounted how she tried to plead her case with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials one more time after her arrest, pointing out that private bills had been introduced by U.S. Reps. Bobby Rush and Luis Gutierrez, both Chicago Democrats, aimed at keeping her in the United States.
The officials refused to discuss the matter, she said. She quoted them as saying, "No, no, no."
"They were angry with me for everything I have done," she said.
She was processed at the immigration staging facility in Santa Ana, Calif., with officials taking her photograph and fingerprints, and then transporting her 100 miles to the border crossing at San Ysidro, Calif. There, she walked through a metal turnstile and was greeted by Mexican officials in Tijuana, according to a statement issued by immigration officials.
Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, who accompanied Arellano to Los Angeles, said this morning that Arellano was staying with a relative in Tijuana.
"She is in good spirits," he said. "She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."
Federal officials said Arellano's 8-year-old son, Saul, was left, at Arellano's request, with Coleman and other traveling companions.
Immigration officers arrested Arellano, 32, shortly after 2 p.m. Sunday Los Angeles time as she and her supporters were leaving a downtown church. She had sought sanctuary at the church after slipping unnoticed out of the Chicago church where she had avoided deportation since August 2006.
Glenn Triveline, a Chicago field office director for immigration, said today that authorities did not arrest Arellano in Chicago because they were concerned about the safety of officers.
"We had reason to believe that there was going to be a lot of people in there, in the church, there to protect her," he said.
Los Angeles was different from Chicago, he said, because she was outside.
"It was just that she was outside in an area where we could facilitate the arrest," he said.
In Chicago this morning, more than 50 Arellano supporters demonstrated outside immigration offices at 536 S. Clark St., carrying signs reading "Stop the Raids" and "Stop Enforcing Racist Laws."
Via speakerphone, Chicago activist Emma Lozano, who was with Arellano in Los Angeles, spoke to the demonstrators.
"Her spirits are high," Lozano told the crowd, adding that federal officials sought "to silence her and clip her wings."
Planning continued for a major demonstration Sept. 12 on the Mall in Washington to highlight the plight of illegal immigrants, Lozano said. Calling it "A Day Without Immigrants," Lozano said the protest would revolve around a national boycott in which immigrants would be called on to stay away from their jobs and classrooms and refrain from making any purchases.
After demonstrating outside the Chicago immigration offices, the protesters moved on to the Kluczynski Federal Building, 230 S. Dearborn St., where five of them went up to the local office of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to urge him to introduce a private bill to provide a humanitarian visa for Arellano.
Tribune reporter Monique Garcia and Tribune photographer Abel Uribe contributed to this report.
aolivo@tribune.com
Immigrant activist moves to L.A. church - Arellano arrives from Chicago, opts not to attend rally
By Antonio Olivo
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
August 19, 2007
LOS ANGELES - In a tentative start to a planned a cross-country journey to galvanize support for new federal immigration reforms, Elvira Arellano appeared in Los Angeles on Saturday, days after leaving the Chicago church where she has sought sanctuary for the last year to avoid deportation.
At the last minute, though, the 32-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant ditched plans to speak at an immigration rally and instead stayed inside a downtown Los Angeles church, holding several news conferences throughout the day.
As Arellano urged supporters to press Congress to pass reforms friendly to the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, her 8-year-old son, Saul, spoke on her behalf at the modestly attended rally in front of Los Angeles City Hall.
Saul, who is a U.S. citizen and has spent the last year with his mother in a Humboldt Park church, arrived in Los Angeles separately Friday. His mother, who says she had not set foot outside the Chicago church in the last year, left the sanctuary quietly and unnoticed Thursday and arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday morning.
Drawing loud applause from supporters and scowls from a small group of counter-protesters, Saul Arellano pleaded with demonstrators to "tell President Bush to stop the raids and deportations so my mom and other families can stay here."
A few blocks away, his mother spoke from Our Lady Queen of Angels Church.
"More than anything, we bring a message of unity," Arellano said, addressing reporters at the church, which is among more than a dozen nationwide that have served as sanctuaries for illegal immigrants who have been ordered out of the country.
"I couldn't just stay there with my arms folded and watch all this affecting our families," Arellano said, referring to recent national movements she says make it hard for immigrants, such as stepped-up workplace raids and harsher penalties for hiring illegal workers
On Sunday, Arellano intends to visit other illegal immigrants who have avoided deportation inside another church in the Los Angeles area. She declined to comment further on plans beyond that but has said she will be in Washington Sept. 12 to participate in an eight-hour prayer and fast vigil on the National Mall.
Arellano chose to start her public tour in California, she said, because the state is home to House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofren, who leads a House committee on immigration.
Arellano had planned to speak at Saturday's immigration rally but feared arrest and overexposure, and wanted to avoid harm from critics. Poor planning of an event that barely drew 500 demonstrators on a warm cloudless day also played a part.
She first sought refuge inside the Aldalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago last August, when she was scheduled to report to federal authorities for deportation.
Arellano, who has entered the country illegally twice, was arrested in 2002 during a federal immigration sweep at O'Hare International Airport, where she worked cleaning airplanes. She has said she wants to be able to raise her son in the United States.
U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement officials said they were aware Arellano had left Chicago but declined to comment further, referring to a statement that labels her as a government fugitive and says all such arrests are prioritized.
- - -
A year in sanctuary
Aug. 15, 2006: Elvira Arellano seeks sanctuary in a Humboldt Park church with her son, Saul, to avoid being deported to Mexico.
Sept. 29: Federal judge rejects her bid to stay in U.S.
Oct. 2: Saul travels to Washington to request a meeting with President Bush.
Nov. 14: Saul pleads mother's case to Mexico's Congress.
Saturday: Arellano seeks sanctuary in an Los Angeles church as her son speaks at an immigration march taking place nearby.
aolivo@tribune.com
By Antonio Olivo and Oscar Avila, Tribune staff reporters: Antonio Olivo reported from Tijuana, Mexico. Oscar Avila reported from Mexico City
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
August 22, 2007
TIJUANA, Mexico - Elvira Arellano has become a celebrity, with Mexican TV camera crews and news photographers following her Tuesday as if she were an actress in a hit soap opera instead of one of the thousands of recently deported illegal immigrants here.
After U.S. immigration authorities arrested her in Los Angeles on Sunday and escorted her to the border, she moved into in a dim apartment. But during short walks for food or toothpaste, between a stream of media interviews, her star power shined: "The people approach me and say: `Welcome to Mexico. Here you are in your home,'" she said.
"On the streets, everybody recognizes me," marveled Arellano, who lived for years in Chicago in obscurity, and spent most of the last year holed up in a Northwest Side church.
Mexican authorities and activists wasted no time in trying to capitalize on Arellano's new cachet, scrambling to align themselves with Arellano and gently suggesting what the newest chapter in her life should look like.
On Wednesday, Arellano, 32, plans to travel to Mexico City, where on Thursday she plans to stand with a group of Mexican congressmen to denounce the U.S. Congress for not passing more lenient immigration reforms.
Plans are also under way for Arellano to headline a Sept. 12 rally near Tijuana's border with California, an appearance meant to coincide with a demonstration planned in Washington. Before she was arrested, Arellano had hoped to culminate her cross-country trip with a prayer and fast vigil on that day on the National Mall.
Once those events are finished, Arellano said she intends to keep fighting for immigration reforms in the U.S. But she said she is still unsure whether her 8-year-old son, Saul, a U.S. citizen now back on that side of the border, will rejoin her in Mexico or stay with friends in Chicago to attend school. Saul's father has been out of the picture since before the child was born.
She seemed a little dazzled by the transition from her year in refuge at Adalberto United Methodist Church in Humboldt Park, to her quick dash to Los Angeles to campaign for "mixed-status" families like hers, to her newfound celebrity in Mexico.
"My thoughts are still a little confused," Arellano said in a rare quiet moment, as she stared out her window across a smog-choked street at a sign advertising English classes.
Others, however, were formulating an agenda for her.
Rosario Ibarra, a prominent human-rights activist in Mexico City, suggested that Arellano use her celebrity to chastise the Mexican government for not providing enough economic opportunities to keep its people in the country.
Raul Rios, a Mexican congressman from Arellano's home state of Michoacan, suggested she should push Mexican consulates in the U.S. to do more to help undocumented immigrants. "We should start by fixing our own house," Rios said, adding he helped to create a nonpartisan coalition on immigration issues to work with Arellano.
"Elvira is an example, not just for those who live in the United States but for immigrants all over the world," said Jose Jacques, a Mexican congressman from California. "I think she can convert herself into an icon for a struggle that is even more global, that addresses the root causes of migration."
Arellano said she plans to think things over during an upcoming trip to Michoacan, where she'll also look for a new school for Saul. While he has said he wants to live in Chicago, she said she's hoping her son will miss her enough to change his mind.
"I'm trying to respect his wishes," Arellano said, adding that he may still be traumatized by her arrest. "I don't want him to think that I'm forcing him to come here."
aolivo@tribune.com
oavila@tribune.com
Arellano, son will live separately - BACK IN MEXICO | Activist vows 'to continue fighting'
Copyright by The Associated Press
August 21, 2007
TIJUANA, Mexico -- Elvira Arellano was reunited here with her 8-year-old son Monday, but the illegal immigrant and activist said the boy will return to Chicago to live with his godmother and begin third grade.
''We've all been living together. He knows his mom is OK. He's going to be sad sometimes,'' said Emma Lozano, the godmother and an activist in her own right.
Lozano drove 8-year-old Saul from Los Angeles to Tijuana, where Elvira Arellano is staying with a friend after being deported from the United States to Mexico.
Elvira Arellano, 32, took refuge for a year in a church in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born son.
In that time, she became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents as she defied her deportation order and spoke out from her sanctuary. She left the Adalberto United Methodist Church last week. Arellano had just spoken at a Los Angeles rally when she was arrested Sunday and deported, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist.
''They were in a hurry to deport me because they saw that I was threatening to mobilize and organize the people to fight for legalization,'' Arellano said in Spanish outside the Tijuana apartment building where she was staying. ''I have a fighting spirit and I'm going to continue fighting.''
Saul may tour U.S.
Arellano said she may return to her home in the Mexican state of Michoacan and then return to Tijuana in September for a demonstration coinciding with planned immigration protests in the United States.
Lozano said Arellano's son may tour the U.S. to promote immigrant rights. The boy declined to talk to a reporter.
Chris Bergin, Arellano's immigration attorney, said Arellano had signed a power of attorney document giving Lozano authority to make legal decisions for Saul.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services said it did not foresee any intervention because there was no record of prior contact with the Arellano family.
"Private custody arrangements happen every day," said a spokesman. "There's always an understanding with those kinds of things."
Mexican authorities did not know the identity or whereabouts of the boy's father, said Luis Cabrera, Mexico's consul general in San Diego.
Opponents of illegal immigration said Arellano's arrest was overdue, and a U.S. immigration official said she had been a criminal fugitive.
Mexican authorities said the deportation highlighted a need to overhaul U.S. immigration laws.
''It's tragic when a mother is separated from her son,'' Cabrera said.
She's no martyr: feds
Jim Hayes, director of ICE in Los Angeles, said ''proper perspective'' should be placed on the woman's case. Using a false identity -- as in the case of Arellano, who was convicted of using someone else's Social Security number -- can be a threat to national security, he said.
''We don't think she's a martyr,'' Hayes said. ''She was a criminal fugitive who is in violation of the law.''
Arellano arrived in Washington state illegally in 1997. She soon was deported to Mexico, but returned and moved to Illinois in 2000, taking a job cleaning planes at O'Hare 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 a year ago but instead sought refuge at the church.
Immigration activists said they will continue Arellano's plan to go to Washington, D.C., and take part in a prayer meeting and rally for immigration reform on Sept. 12. They also called for a national boycott on that date.
The sentiment was echoed outside an ICE office in Chicago on Monday.
''Her voice will not be silenced,'' activist Jacobita Alonzo told a crowd of about 50 supporters.
Arellano: Return to U.S. unlikely - 'The only thing I can do is stay in Mexico,' deported illegal immigrant says
By Antonio Olivo
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
1:22 PM CDT, August 20, 2007
SAN DIEGO — Deported immigration activist Elvira Arellano said today that she will continue her fight for immigration reform, but she acknowledged she has little chance of returning to the United States.
"The only thing I can do is stay in Mexico," she told the Tribune in a telephone interview from Tijuana, Mexico, where she ended up after federal authorities handed her over to Mexican officials Sunday night.
Earlier, immigration officials confirmed that Arellano had been deported after her arrest on a downtown Los Angeles street Sunday afternoon after leaving her yearlong refuge in a Chicago church.
In today's interview, Arellano recounted how she tried to plead her case with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials one more time after her arrest, pointing out that private bills had been introduced by U.S. Reps. Bobby Rush and Luis Gutierrez, both Chicago Democrats, aimed at keeping her in the United States.
The officials refused to discuss the matter, she said. She quoted them as saying, "No, no, no."
"They were angry with me for everything I have done," she said.
She was processed at the immigration staging facility in Santa Ana, Calif., with officials taking her photograph and fingerprints, and then transporting her 100 miles to the border crossing at San Ysidro, Calif. There, she walked through a metal turnstile and was greeted by Mexican officials in Tijuana, according to a statement issued by immigration officials.
Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, who accompanied Arellano to Los Angeles, said this morning that Arellano was staying with a relative in Tijuana.
"She is in good spirits," he said. "She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."
Federal officials said Arellano's 8-year-old son, Saul, was left, at Arellano's request, with Coleman and other traveling companions.
Immigration officers arrested Arellano, 32, shortly after 2 p.m. Sunday Los Angeles time as she and her supporters were leaving a downtown church. She had sought sanctuary at the church after slipping unnoticed out of the Chicago church where she had avoided deportation since August 2006.
Glenn Triveline, a Chicago field office director for immigration, said today that authorities did not arrest Arellano in Chicago because they were concerned about the safety of officers.
"We had reason to believe that there was going to be a lot of people in there, in the church, there to protect her," he said.
Los Angeles was different from Chicago, he said, because she was outside.
"It was just that she was outside in an area where we could facilitate the arrest," he said.
In Chicago this morning, more than 50 Arellano supporters demonstrated outside immigration offices at 536 S. Clark St., carrying signs reading "Stop the Raids" and "Stop Enforcing Racist Laws."
Via speakerphone, Chicago activist Emma Lozano, who was with Arellano in Los Angeles, spoke to the demonstrators.
"Her spirits are high," Lozano told the crowd, adding that federal officials sought "to silence her and clip her wings."
Planning continued for a major demonstration Sept. 12 on the Mall in Washington to highlight the plight of illegal immigrants, Lozano said. Calling it "A Day Without Immigrants," Lozano said the protest would revolve around a national boycott in which immigrants would be called on to stay away from their jobs and classrooms and refrain from making any purchases.
After demonstrating outside the Chicago immigration offices, the protesters moved on to the Kluczynski Federal Building, 230 S. Dearborn St., where five of them went up to the local office of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to urge him to introduce a private bill to provide a humanitarian visa for Arellano.
Tribune reporter Monique Garcia and Tribune photographer Abel Uribe contributed to this report.
aolivo@tribune.com
Immigrant activist moves to L.A. church - Arellano arrives from Chicago, opts not to attend rally
By Antonio Olivo
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
August 19, 2007
LOS ANGELES - In a tentative start to a planned a cross-country journey to galvanize support for new federal immigration reforms, Elvira Arellano appeared in Los Angeles on Saturday, days after leaving the Chicago church where she has sought sanctuary for the last year to avoid deportation.
At the last minute, though, the 32-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant ditched plans to speak at an immigration rally and instead stayed inside a downtown Los Angeles church, holding several news conferences throughout the day.
As Arellano urged supporters to press Congress to pass reforms friendly to the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, her 8-year-old son, Saul, spoke on her behalf at the modestly attended rally in front of Los Angeles City Hall.
Saul, who is a U.S. citizen and has spent the last year with his mother in a Humboldt Park church, arrived in Los Angeles separately Friday. His mother, who says she had not set foot outside the Chicago church in the last year, left the sanctuary quietly and unnoticed Thursday and arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday morning.
Drawing loud applause from supporters and scowls from a small group of counter-protesters, Saul Arellano pleaded with demonstrators to "tell President Bush to stop the raids and deportations so my mom and other families can stay here."
A few blocks away, his mother spoke from Our Lady Queen of Angels Church.
"More than anything, we bring a message of unity," Arellano said, addressing reporters at the church, which is among more than a dozen nationwide that have served as sanctuaries for illegal immigrants who have been ordered out of the country.
"I couldn't just stay there with my arms folded and watch all this affecting our families," Arellano said, referring to recent national movements she says make it hard for immigrants, such as stepped-up workplace raids and harsher penalties for hiring illegal workers
On Sunday, Arellano intends to visit other illegal immigrants who have avoided deportation inside another church in the Los Angeles area. She declined to comment further on plans beyond that but has said she will be in Washington Sept. 12 to participate in an eight-hour prayer and fast vigil on the National Mall.
Arellano chose to start her public tour in California, she said, because the state is home to House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofren, who leads a House committee on immigration.
Arellano had planned to speak at Saturday's immigration rally but feared arrest and overexposure, and wanted to avoid harm from critics. Poor planning of an event that barely drew 500 demonstrators on a warm cloudless day also played a part.
She first sought refuge inside the Aldalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago last August, when she was scheduled to report to federal authorities for deportation.
Arellano, who has entered the country illegally twice, was arrested in 2002 during a federal immigration sweep at O'Hare International Airport, where she worked cleaning airplanes. She has said she wants to be able to raise her son in the United States.
U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement officials said they were aware Arellano had left Chicago but declined to comment further, referring to a statement that labels her as a government fugitive and says all such arrests are prioritized.
- - -
A year in sanctuary
Aug. 15, 2006: Elvira Arellano seeks sanctuary in a Humboldt Park church with her son, Saul, to avoid being deported to Mexico.
Sept. 29: Federal judge rejects her bid to stay in U.S.
Oct. 2: Saul travels to Washington to request a meeting with President Bush.
Nov. 14: Saul pleads mother's case to Mexico's Congress.
Saturday: Arellano seeks sanctuary in an Los Angeles church as her son speaks at an immigration march taking place nearby.
aolivo@tribune.com
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