Immigration Activist Deported To Mexico

After Avoiding Arrest For A Year By Taking Refuge In A Chicago Church

(AP)  An illegal immigrant who stayed in a Chicago church for a year to avoid separation from her 8-year-old son, a U.S. citizen, has been deported to Mexico, the church's pastor said.

Elvira Arellano was arrested Sunday afternoon outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church in Los Angeles. She was deported several hours later, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano had taken refuge.

"She has been deported. She is free and in Tijuana," said Coleman, who said he spoke to her on the phone. "She is in good spirits. She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."

A message left with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials late Sunday was not immediately returned.

Arellano, 32, has become a symbol of the struggles of illegal immigrant parents and a source of controversy. She had said Saturday she was not afraid of being taken into custody by immigration agents.

"From the time I took sanctuary the possibility has existed that they arrest me in the place and time they want," she said in Spanish. "I only have two choices. I either go to my country, Mexico, or stay and keep fighting. I decided to stay and fight."

Coleman said Arellano had brought to light her struggle, and for that, "she has won a victory."

Los Angeles area Catholic priest Father Luis Angel Nieto said he learned of Arellano's deportation by speaking by phone with Mexican authorities.

"Tomorrow we are going to start trying to get her back," said Angel, who is a supporter of the New Sanctuary Movement, in which a handful of churches across the country have begun to house illegal immigrants.