Yip Yap Times

Elvira Arellano and Illegal Immigration

Everyone who is interested in the issue of illegal immigration has probably been following the saga of Mexican citizen, felon and illegal immigrant Elvira Arellano. Last year, she garnered the sympathy of the pastor and parishioners of Chicago’s Adalberto United Methodist Church as they rationalized giving aid to a lawbreaker as a poor Mexican woman who deserved a chance at a better life. They decided to protect them, forever if necessary, to keep her from being deported.

"We immigrants need representation," Arellano complained. “The millions of Mexican immigrants who are living in the U.S. are being treated like criminals. I'm not a criminal. I'm a mother who worked to support my son in this country."

Actually, she is a criminal. She had snuck into the U.S. twice, the first time in 1997. After being deported in 1999, she illegally crossed the border again—a felony that if prosecuted, could get her 20 years behind bars. She obtained work using a stolen Social Security Number—another felony—and had been fraudulently working at the airport cleaning airplanes. In a post 9/11 world, this should cause the Homeland Security agents to swoon in fear. She had defied judicial orders to appear before a court concerning her illegal status and had instead spent a year hiding in the Chicago church thanks to Reverend Walter Coleman. Despite all this and the fact that sanctuary is not recognized in U.S. law, ICE let her be while she remained in her hidey-hole demanding rights for illegal immigrants.

And now she is bellyaching about how U.S. immigration laws have broken up her happy family. She and her ardent defenders argue that because her son is a U.S. citizen, the U.S. government should not split up her family by deporting her. If family unification were important to her, she should have stayed in Mexico with her family. No one forced her to leave her son behind, this was her choice yet she has used him as a human shield to avoid deportation.

The Left is also exploiting this boy claiming family solidarity. The Left's claim to care about families makes no sense given its propensity to kill off children via abortion and promote homosexuality at every turn. But I digress.

“God wants me to serve as an example of the hatred and hypocrisy of the current administration," she told the Chicago Tribune. But thanks to the compassionate fair-mindedness of the current administration, she is now free to bring her son to Mexico to live with her instead of visiting with him through a plate of Lexan and telephone handset.

Notwithstanding all this, some clergy still choose to defy American law in the name of religion, claiming they are serving the poor and providing asylum to the refugee. At best this is grossly misguided compassion but likely these men of the cloth are mixing their politics with the pulpit. These compassion fascists refuse to accept that immigration law is intended to protect American citizens and provide for an orderly absorption of those applying to come here. America has always been the first to take in refugees from some of the worst holes in the world—Cuba and Haiti come to mind—so to act in civil disobedience as if the government were hunting down good and decent contrarians to a ruthless regime is not only wrong, but stupid. In aiding a fugitive, Reverend Coleman broke the law. But again, thanks to the decency of this government—decency to a fault—he will not be arrested or bothered in any way. Would he have gotten the same treatment in, say, North Korea, or even Mexico?

Business and politicians claim that illegal immigrants do the work no one else will do. While many claim that illegals help our economy because they spend money here and pay taxes here, the fact is that much of that money is sent back to Mexico to help support family members that just can’t seem to get up here too. Meanwhile, each illegal immigrant costs the taxpayer $22,000 a year. Despite efforts by the Bush administration to get the Mexican government to help keep its citizens at home, it really doesn’t have any incentive to do so. To wit: Mexico sends its poverty ridden and unwanted citizens to the stupid gringos in El Norte and gets foreign exchange in return. Hmmm. Low skilled high school dropouts or hard currency?

One might think these factors would be enough to get a consensus on the need to control our southern border. Instead, we see the power hungry political left willing to give away what America won fair and square in 1848 even as we watch, mouth agape, illegals protesting in the annual National March for Immigrant Rights and demanding rights and benefits and waving the Mexican flag as if the southwest was actually Mexican territory. Even while a few in Congress are working hard to create a real border between Mexico and the U.S., American business is in bed with many other politicians hoping to keep the border as porous as possible for that cheap labor.

While the bleeding hearts continue to bleat "unfair" in apparent hopes of getting into heaven and as our leaders turn a blind eye to all of this, one day an illegal border crossing much worse than Arellano’s will happen. Then what?



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posted by Lisa @ 2:00 PM