By Stone Martindale Aug 23, 2007, 18:30 GMT
A Mexican Senate committee passed a measure Wednesday urging President Felipe Calderon to send a diplomatic note to the United States protesting the deportation of an illegal migrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year.
Elvira Arellano (C) and her son Saul, 8, attend Sunday services in Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, in this April 15, 2007 file photo. Arellano, who became a voice for families facing deportation by taking sanctuary in a Chicago church a year ago said on Wednesday she will leave her refuge to take her fight to Washington. REUTERS/John Gress/Files
The committee also approved a scholarship to help her 8-year-old U.S.-born son, Saul, who is an American citizen and stayed in the United States.
The AP reports that Elvira Arellano, 32, became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents by defying her deportation order and speaking out from her sanctuary in the Adalberto United Methodist Church.
The deportation of Arellano - who spent over a year under the protection of a Methodist church has revived calls from both sides of the border for changes to U.S. immigration laws.
"We cannot remain quiet in view of this injustice and must ask for firm action from our authorities," Mexican Sen. Humberto Zazue said, according to The AP.
On Sunday, shortly after she spoke at an immigrant rights rally in Our Lady Queen of Angels Church, also known as La Placita, in Los Angeles, Arellano was arrested and deported to Tijuana, across the border from San Diego.
The immigration activist made the trip to California – the first time she emerged from her Chicago Methodist sanctuary since she sought refuge in Aug. 15, 2006 – to attend the rally and to speak at several churches.
“She has been deported. She is free and in Tijuana,” confirmed the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church, according to NBC news. “She is in good spirits. She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border.”
Not everyone is singing Arellano's praises. Some outspoken critics have denounced her as a lawbreaker who flaunts her crime in the face of government officials by holding press conferences.
“She broke the law. You cannot use your child as a human shield to ignore immigration laws,” said Joseph Turner, Western regional coordinator of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“You cannot say: I have a child who is an American citizen. That makes me immune to any law I violated,” Turner argued.
Many bring up the point that Arellano and other illegal immigrant parents can simply take their children back to Mexico with them, to avoid any separation.
However, Arellano contends that if she takes her son with her back to Mexico then he will lose his rights as a U.S. citizen, which was obtained illegally by his mother's disregard of the immigration laws.
Protests were held in Latino rich communities of San Diego, Chicago and Los Angeles following Arellano’s deportation.
Earlier this summer, President Bush and a group of bipartisan senators had tried to push through Congress an immigration reform bill that would have provided a pathway for illegal immigrants to gain legal status while beefing up border security and enacting penalties for those crossing the border illegally.
Fierce opposition to the bill from conservative Republicans who called the legislation amnesty had derailed the legislation.
In May, many churches in five big U.S. cities – Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Chicago, and New York – announced their intention to protect illegal immigrants from deportation, offering their buildings as sanctuary if need be.
The "New Sanctuary Movement,” as the effort is called, is loosely based on a movement in the 1980s, when churches harbored Central American refugees fleeing wars in their home countries. Organizers of the current movement include members of the Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and other faiths.
While some have called the effort “radical hospitality,” critics have called it misguided.
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