Thousands of Elvira Arellanos fight to keep their families

Elvira Arellano

Immigrant rights activist Elvira Arellano was unable to attend the Chicago Immigrant Workers Walk for Justice. She spent the Labor Day weekend where she has been since Aug. 15—in sanctuary at Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, knowing that she faces arrest and immediate deportation at any time.

Arellano was working at O’Hare airport, cleaning airplanes, when she was arrested in 2002 for using a false social security num ber. She has exhausted her appeals and Illinois senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama have refused to sponsor a “private bill” to spare her from deportation.

But her story was told again and again during the march—by other mothers and other children. The U.S. government has left thousands of families facing separation, anguish and exile—and this has brought thousands of their friends, co-workers and supporters into the movement to stop deportations.

On Sept. 2, marchers in Melrose Park heard members of the congregation of St. Charles Borromeo speak up for their friend Teresa Figueroa, a 51-year-old mother whose situation is similar to Arellano’s. While working at Micron Industries in Elmhurst, she was arrested for using a false social security number. She now faces imminent deportation.

At the Labor Day rally in Batavia, relatives of Maria Benitez of Chicago spoke. She faces separation from her husband and children, all of whom are U.S. citizens. She had begun to apply for residency in 1999, but it was voided after she crossed the border into Mexico to visit her sick mother and then attempted to return. A humanitarian parole she obtained due to the birth of her youngest child expires this month.

The list is endless. In 2005, as president of the Latino Families United Committee, Arellano compiled a list of 35 families in northern Illinois who faced immediate separation under the inflexible immigration laws. (www.somosunpueblo.com) Each story demonstrates that the immigration laws are instruments of terror against workers and their families, and that deportations are the real crimes.

In the last two weeks Arellano has been subjected to the vilification of the major media in Chicago and the right wing nationally; the anti-immigrant Minute men have besieged her place of sanctuary; and another anti-immigrant group, “Mothers Against Illegal Aliens,” stooped so low as to file papers against her for “child abuse” for allowing her son, seven-year-old Saulito, to participate in events in his mother’s defense. “Liberal” columnists like the Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn say she is “retarding the cause” and call for her immediate arrest and deportation.

But for undocumented immigrants around the U.S., Arellano’s story is their own. That’s why the National Alliance for Immigrant Rights has stated, “Elvira Arellano is being referred to as the ‘Rosa Parks’ of the immigrant rights movement and has put a human face on the heartless deportations of our nation’s undocumented immigrants.”