Elvira Arellano

LOS ANGELES: Immigrant rights activists marched through downtown Los Angeles in support of Elvira Arellano, a recently deported immigrant from Mexico who spent nearly a year huddled inside a Chicago church to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born son.

Arellano, 32, was sent back to Mexico last weekend after traveling to Los Angeles to attend a rally for the overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. Her son stayed in the United States.

Police closed off streets as hundreds of demonstrators, including many families with young children, marched up Broadway on Saturday carrying large photos of Arellano and her 8-year-old son, Saul. Others raised placards reading "We are all Elvira!"

At the end of the march, a stage was set up and dozens of speakers called for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Arellano became an activist and a national symbol for undocumented immigrant parents by defying her deportation order and speaking out from her sanctuary in Chicago's Adalberto United Methodist Church, where she had stayed with her son since Aug. 15, 2006.

She recently announced that she was leaving Chicago to lobby lawmakers in Washington, D.C. On Sunday, shortly after she spoke at a rally in a Los Angeles church, she was detained by immigration agents and deported.

Arellano is currently residing in Tijuana, just across the border from San Diego and only about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from where she says she entered the United States illegally in 1997.

"I have a fighting spirit, and I'm going to continue to fight," Arellano said Tuesday outside the second-floor apartment where she is living with a friend.

Arellano plans to campaign for legal status for the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country, and against stepped-up raids, which have caused many families like hers to be separated.

Her son, Saul, is in Chicago in the care of his godmother and will attend a Sept. 12 rally for immigration reform in Washington, Arellano told reporters in Mexico earlier this week.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Elvira
• Arellano
• Immigrant
• activism
• Los
• Angeles

[tzotziyolotl]

Nov. 11, 1989, 20,000 people dismantled the murderous Berlin Wall.

This November, from San Diego to El Paso "Berlin Wall Style" rallies will do the same.

[possum425]

That was great thank you

[PJL2022]

Raza Si Migra NO!!!

[groundinghubris]

Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing this.