Feds Won't Raid Church For Immigrant

Immigration enforcement officers do not plan to enter a church where a single mother sought sanctuary rather than submit to deportation to Mexico, a government official said Friday.

But Elvira Arellano, 31, and her supporters say only a stay of deportation will ensure that she and her 7-year-old son, an American citizen, are not forcibly removed from the Adalberto United Methodist Church.

"The situation doesn't change," Arellano said in Spanish.

Arellano has been living in the church since Tuesday, when she was supposed to surrender to authorities for deportation.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had said they would apprehend Arellano at a time and place "of their choosing" and that nothing prevented them from going into the church.

But on Friday, a government official close to the case said immigration agents have decided against entering the church to remove Arellano.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is against ICE policy to discuss operational matters, said the Arellano case carries "no more priority than any of the other 500,000 fugitives nationally."

Arellano will be apprehended "at an appropriate time and place," the official said.

Arellano said she was unconvinced that immigration officials would not try to apprehend her at the church, where supporters kept a watchful eye on the flow of traffic at the front door.

"Until I have something in writing that says they are giving me an extension so that I can stay in the country with my son, for me there is no security," she said.

Arellano was deported shortly after illegally crossing into the United States in 1997. She returned within days. She was arrested in 2002 and convicted of working under a false Social Security number.

She has since become a vocal proponent for immigration reform and is president of United Latino Family, a group that lobbies for families that could be split by deportation.

[hkl03]

Close our borders? The US was built on immigration, if our borders were closed a couple hundred years go, none of us would be here right now.

You all talk as if she stole something from you, but what? Jobs? Were you picking oranges or cleaning bathrooms? Are those the jobs that she stole from you?

Now immigrants are taking up all the hospital funds? Why don't you look at the biggest waste of money in our history right now. We are spending billions each year in Iraq and all you talk about is money spent on illegal immigrants?

Open you eyes, there are more people in this country than just you.

[usamerican]

The American Government had no quams regarding the raid on the Davidian Compound, then why hesitate in not sending in Law Enforcement to extract Elvira Arellano & Son?

Go in and get them, then send them home on a plane once and for all. Make sure she understands, that any further attempts to return will be imprisonment.

It's time we get tough & close our boarders until we get a handle on illeagles here in the United States.

If the media can go into the church to interview her, then there is no law agency that would allow illegal activity of other sorts to have ground in a church. Then go in after them and SEND THEM HOME!!

She and her son are wasting US Citizens Money!

No Excuses Send Them Both Back to Mexico!

[usamerican]

Elvira Arellano needs to be deported ASAP. I'm sick n' tired of them living here illeagally, then crying for amnesty once they are caught!

It's not the American peoples fault nor the American Peoples Responsibility for her illagitamnet son, she only had the baby to get residency here! Stop using Children as human shields!

Reform & Mandate Immigration laws that give no citizenship to illegal aliens babies born here! Enough is Enough! They are wasting out tax dollars in US Hospitals, they are depleting hospital funds for Citizens who need help!

Send Them Both Back to where they came from!

Send her back and make sure she does not return! She and her Son are a burden to America. Send her home with no return.

American Made

[sickofthis6]

Illegal reentry is punishable by 20 years. It's time it was enforced.

She is the one who put her child in this situation. And you can bet he was probably produced as an anchor baby, just to keep her here.

Don't deport her. And don't give her any more press.

Either go in and arrest her now, or the moment she sets foot outside.

Then prosecute the "in your face ,America" illegal and give her the 20 years.

Let her deal with what happens to her child. It was her doing. Let her explain his future to him.

And while we're at it, is school in session there? Is it not also against the law to keep your child out of school?

[joshau06]

Changing the subject? My, what a left wing approach.

[daddyb7]

Don't you people have enough to worry about without fretting about a mother and her child? Why, just this week a Federal judge ruled that Bush's warrantless wiretapping, which has been going on for five years, breaks the 1st Amendment, the 4th Amendment, and the FISA act. Your own president, breaking the law and the Constitution.

Where's your outrage about that? Don't you think maybe, just MAYBE, that's just a tiny bit more serious than a woman holed up in a church so that she won't lose her child?

We've got time to deal with immigration issues. A president who breaks the Constitution at will is a crisis.

[eyeinsky1]

Ms. Arellano's first attempt to enter the US illegally was unsecessful and she was returned to Mexico. She then made re-entry and remained until the birth of her American born son. She has since been identified as being an illegal and US officials want to return her back again to Mexico. She now wants to remain permanently using her son as justification for doing so.
Ms. Arellano must be returned to Mexico and she must apply for a visa to re-enter the US to make her citizenship legal.
She, must make the hard choice if she wants her son to stay or that he return with her.
She knew that it was illegal for her to come here in the first place. She cannot have it both ways!

[joshau06]

She may be a "vocal proponent" for immigration reform, but if she understood english, and our national laws, she would understand that ILLEGAL ALIENS are not immigrants, they are criminals. Immigrants are respected and valued by American society for entering the country through proper legal channels and using their talents and trades to better our country, not just their own self interests.

[jeny6271]

She has been in our country for 9 years and has not learned the language. She stole an American SS# and did not have this boy until 7 years ago that the state if IL paid for with public aid funds. How long are we going to allow the rules and laws to be broken for criminal's such as this women before our own goverment does it's job?

[paula513]

Immigration officers need to repectfully enter the church and remove this person. Her deportation must be carried out immediately.

Too long have American citizens allowed illegal aliens to use their children as battering rams against our borders. I believe that we need an amendment to the Constitution that denies automatic citizenship to children of illegal immigrants.