Immigrant rights activist gains national support

Elvira Arellano

Elvira Arellano, a 31-year-old Latina single mom, has become the heart of the struggle for millions of undocumented workers who seek to keep their families together.

Arellano has lived in the U.S. since 1997. To protect her seven-year-old son, Saul, who has ADHD and health problems, she defied a Department of Homeland Security deportation order. On Aug. 15, Arellano and her son entered the Adalberto United Methodist Church, on Chicago’s West Side.

The pastor of the church, Walter Coleman, said his largely Puerto Rican congregation offered Arellano sanctuary. According to the support committee helping her, the U.S. government is pressuring the church to force Pastor Coleman to expel her.

Arellano wants to work and raise her son in the United States. She purchased a fake Social Security card and got a job cleaning planes. In the hysteria following 9/11, Homeland Security arrested her at O’Hare Airport in 2002.

Millions of Elvira Arellanos

Why did Arellano emigrate? In 1994, the U.S. pushed Mexico into signing the North American Free Trade Agreement. The effect on the Mexican economy has been devastating. Before its passage, many Mexicans lived on small farms, but under NAFTA, these farmers could not compete with U.S. agribusiness. They fled the countryside and went to the cities. The urban population of Mexico went from 63 percent to 75 percent from 1992 to 2002. (UN Human Development Reports)

This is the face of neoliberalism. Over 36 percent of the Mexican population lives on less than $2 a day. Women and young people comprise the lion’s share of the unemployed.

Throughout the world, “free trade” has made millions of Elvira Arellanos. They are Filipin@s, Koreans, Central Americans, Africans and Eastern Europeans.

Yet the media calls Arellano “illegal,” while right-wing talk show hosts denounce her as an “alien.” Racist headlines around the country say the family is “ducking” deportation, “holed up” in a church, likening them to hunted animals.

The case of Elvira Arellano has hit a deep nerve. This administration, which claims to care so much about “family values,” has separated thousands of immigrant parents from their U.S.-born children. The Department of Homeland Security, with no immediate plans to send the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) gestapo into the church while the whole world is watching, has Arellano in its sights.

Support grows for Arellano family

Activist groups in Detroit, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Minnesota, New York, Rochester, San Diego, San Francisco and Vermont are organizing to demand justice for Arellano and immediate legalization for all 12 million undocumented immigrants.

Elvira Arellano “is the face of the movement,” said Emma Lozano, executive director of the Chicago immigration-rights group Centro Sin Fronteras, which Arellano helped found. (montereyherald.com) Arellano mobilized for a mass protest on July 5, 2005, in Chicago that drew 50,000 people, and organized with the Coalition of African, Asian, European and Latino Immigrants of Illinois (CAAELII), a broad coalition for legalization of immigrants in Illinois.

Solidarity with the Arellano family is growing. Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, plans to come to Chicago in solidarity. “She is our Rosa Parks,” said Teresa Gutierrez of New York’s May 1 Coalition.

The National Women’s Caucus of the National Alliance for Immigrant Rights is planning demonstrations in dozens of cities, and has launched an email and telephone campaign to deluge Illinois senators Richard Durbin and Barack Obama and the White House with demands for Arellano’s right to permanent residency and a moratorium on all deportations.