Elvira Arellano is an international activist who works to defend the human rights of immigrants living in the U.S. without legal authorization .
Elvira Arellano was living in Chicago when she was arrested by immigration agents in 2002 for working without authorization at O'Hare International Airport. In 2001, she co-founded La Familia Latina Unida as an expansion of the Methodist group Pueblo Sin Fronteras , a movement fighting for the rights of unauthorized immigrant families to stay together, and in May 2006, she and an activist Flor Crisostomo carried out a three-week hunger strike against deportation.Arellano gained national fame when she took sanctuary in a Chicago church in August 2006, in an effort to avoid being deported away from her U.S.-born son Saul. Her action inspired churches around the U.S. to launch a new sanctuary movement to defend immigrants and end deportations. Time magazine included her among "People Who Mattered" in its "Person of the Year" issue in December 2006. A year after she entered sanctuary, Elvira Arellano was arrested by ICE agents during a visit to Los Angeles, where she went to speak at the church Our Lady Queen of Angels. She was deported on August 20, 2007.
Her son Saul remained in the U.S., but visited her in Mexico.
Elvira Arellano continued her activism for migrant rights in the Mexican state of Michoacan with La Familia Latina Unida - Sin Fronteras , supporting families divided by U.S. deportations, and Central American immigrants detained or affected by the violence in Mexico.
On March 18, 2014, Arellano presented herself to U.S. Border Patrol officials at the Otay Mesa border crossing in San Diego, California, and requested asylum in the United States. She has lived in Chicago since then, continuing her human rights defense work while pressing her case for asylum.
Wikipedia
Tram Nguyen, "No Sanctuary: Elvira Arellano Deported Without Son," RaceWire: The Colorlines Blog (2007-08-20) http://www.racewire.org/archives/2007/08/immigrant_mother_elivira_arell.html
