Immigration Activist Elvira Arellano Arrest Overdue

Elvira Arellano was arrested on Sunday. Immigration activists are protesting the arrest. What are they protesting? The fact that the law was upheld.

Elvira Arellano was deported in 1997, after moving to Washington State illegally. In 2000, she returned to the United States illegally, moved to Illinois and was arrested in 2002 for working under a false social security number. She was told to report to authorities last August. Instead, she claimed sanctuary, hiding in a storefront church in Chicago. She left the church for the first time so she could go to another church to speak out against immigration reform. After visiting three Churches, she was arrested and deported in Los Angeles before she could attend a fourth.

Javier Rodriguez, a Chicago immigration activist who worked with Arellano stated, "How dare they arrest this woman?"

How dare they? How dare they not? She broke the law twice, defied the order of the authorities, and was working to encourage others to break the law. During her arrest and deportation she was not harmed or harassed. She was picked up, her paperwork was processed, and she was handed over to Mexican officials in Tijuana.

This is exactly how these situations should be handled. No one was harmed or humiliated. It was simply a matter of the law being upheld. Arellano broke the law twice by entering illegally. She had a son, who by the benefit of being born while she was here illegally, is a U.S. citizen. She was given the option of taking him with her or allowing him to stay. She allowed him to stay.

Her rights were not violated. She broke the law. She consciously worked to evade capture. She was arrested and deported. The activists have nothing that they should
be complaining about.