On Aug. 19, Elvira Arellano was arrested by Immigrant and Customs Enforcement agents in Los Angeles. Arellano is a well-known immigrant rights activist who had taken sanctuary in a Chicago church in August 2006 to resist a Homeland Security deportation order.
Arellano is a founder of la Familia Latina Unida in Chicago. She is an important voice for justice in the immigrant rights
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Arellano was arrested at 3 p.m. after leaving Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in downtown L.A. She was heading north to San Jose to speak at another church.
An unmarked vehicle stopped the van in which she and her companions were traveling. Fifteen agents with machine guns arrested Arellano in front of her 8-year-old son, Saul. Nine hours later, she was deported to Tijuana, Mexico.
In response to the arrest, supporters came out on Aug. 19 for a vigil in front of the ICE building in Chicago. The next morning, 150 supporters showed up at the ICE building to protest the arrest and deportation.
In Los Angeles on Aug. 20, a major press conference called by the April 7 Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition—which includes Latino Movement USA, Hermandad Mexicana Nacional and the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), among others—drew over 50 media outlets. That night, over 100 people attended a vigil at the downtown federal building.
On Aug. 25, several thousand marched through downtown L.A. in a show of unity and support for Arellano. The main demand was full rights for all immigrants. Click here to read the report.
Struggle for equality
Elvira Arellano had been arrested in a 2002 “security sweep” at her workplace, Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. She was earning $6.50 an hour cleaning airplanes.
Arellano was able to stay in the U.S. for another four years, following a series of legal struggles with the U.S. government.
When her visa ran out, she and her son Saul, a U.S. citizen, took refuge in the Chicago church. She became the face of the sanctuary movement, a small but growing group of U.S. churches that allows undocumented immigrants to seek refuge inside them.
Since her arrest and deportation the capitalist media has increased its attacks on Arellano as a way to diminish the immigrant rights movement. The Chicago Sun-Times has been especially vicious with huge headlines blaring: “Game over: Illegal immigrant Elvira Arellano busted in L.A. Her one-way ticket to Mexico awaits,” and “Now get in line! If Elvira wants back she will have to do it the right way.”
Arellano has vowed to continue the struggle for immigrant rights from Mexico. “I have a fighting spirit, and I’m going to continue to fight,” Arellano told reporters outside the Tijuana apartment where she is living with a friend.
The arrest and deportation of Arellano is part of a coordinated offensive against immigrant workers. It is part of a wave of recent military-style raids of workplaces and communities. The ruling class wants to silence the immigrant rights movement for good.
Bourgeois politicians commonly refer to current U.S. immigration policies as “broken,” but they have done nothing to make life easier for the 12 million undocumented workers living in this country. Congress has failed to pass any comprehensive reform plan. Meanwhile, the status quo remains—raids, arrests, deportations and family separation.
U.S. capitalism wants to continue to exploit vulnerable workers. Workers without legal status in this country are among the most oppressed and also the most demonized. They are forced to work for the lowest wages while being blamed for society’s ills.
This only works to the advantage of the capitalist class. The capitalist ruling class divides and weakens the working class as a whole by maintaining a stratum of workers that can be legally oppressed and deported en masse when workers are no longer needed.
Contrary to what the capitalists say, Elvira Arellano was no threat to workers in the United States. Neither are the thousands of families that the U.S. government splits apart every year through mass deportations.
Immigrants living in the United States are our sisters and brothers; our allies, comrades and friends. We are all part of the same U.S. working class.
We should take inspiration from Arellano’s heroic deeds and stand united in the struggle for justice against the racist, capitalist exploiters and their government.
