Immigrant activist is deported
She spent a year in a Chicago church to try to stay with her U.S.-born son.
LOS ANGELES - An illegal immigrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born son has been deported to Mexico.
Elvira Arellano became an activist and a national symbol for illegal-immigrant parents as she defied her deportation order and spoke out from her religious sanctuary. She held a news conference last week to announce she would finally leave the church to try to lobby U.S. lawmakers for change.
She had just spoken at a Los Angeles rally when she was arrested Sunday outside Our Lady Queen of Angels Church and deported, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano had been living.
"She is free and in Tijuana," Coleman said. "She is in good spirits. She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."
Her son Saul, 8, is now living with Coleman's family.
Arellano had said Saturday that she was not afraid of being taken into custody by immigration agents.
"From the time I took sanctuary, the possibility has existed that they arrest me in the place and time they want," she said in Spanish. "I only have two choices. I either go to my country, Mexico, or stay and keep fighting. I decided to stay and fight."
Arellano, 32, arrived in Washington state illegally in 1997. She was deported to Mexico shortly afterward but returned and moved to Illinois in 2000, taking a job cleaning planes at O'Hare International 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 last August but instead sought refuge at the church Aug. 15, 2006.
She had not left the church property until she decided to travel by car to Los Angeles, Coleman said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed her arrest and said she was deported Sunday night through San Diego's San Ysidro border crossing.
The discussions there included Mexico's general consul in San Diego and ICE's director of detention and removals in San Diego, ICE spokeswoman Lauren Mack said.
"Obviously this was a woman who didn't want to go," Mack said. "They wanted to make sure any possible legal avenue that may have been open to her was closed. This was a very, very sensitive removal for us as well as Mexico."
Immigration activists said yesterday that they would continue Arellano's original plan to go to Washington, D.C., and take part in a prayer meeting and rally Sept. 12. They also called for a national boycott on that date.
Some groups said the arrest was long overdue.
"Just because the woman has gone public and made an issue of the fact that she is defying law doesn't mean the government doesn't have to do its job," said Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors limits on immigration.