by Salome Eguizabal and Charlie Ericksen
Elvira Arellano her son Saúl
Just as Elián González put a fresh human face on “Cuban refugee” nearly eight years ago, Elvira Arellano has gone and done it to the derisive term “illegal alien.”
There are many parallels to their stories. Each centered on a young, single mother and her son.Each mother took incredible risks to build a better life for her child. Both mothers dreamed the “American dream.” And both lived a nightmare.
There are differences in their dramas, too, as large as the Florida Straits that swallowed Elián’s mother and almost ended his own life. Elízabeth Rodríguez died at age 28 along with all 11 others aboard their Florida-bound small craft. Elvira was torn away from the clinging arms of her son and quickly deported.
Five-year-old Elián was found bobbing in an inner tube by a pair of Florida fisherman on Thanksgiving Day 1999. Instantly the child won this nation’s collective heart with his story and his smile. His arrival also ignited a political battle that stretched through seven months.
Mexico native Elvira is 32 now and her struggles are reflected in the lines in her face.
Her happy years seem past. She set out with dreams but no documents ten years ago.A lengthy romance included the birth of her lone joy, Saúl, now 8, but eventually ended in separation from the child’s father.
In December 2002, while employed as a maintenance worker at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Arellano was caught in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweep. After all her appeals failed, she defied her deportation order last year and sought sanctuary with Saúl inside the city’s Adalberto United Methodist Church.
The pair became national spokespersons against U.S. immigration policies that separate mother and child. Over the past year, their situation became symbolic of the struggles facing the many mixed-status U.S. families, those made up of both undocumented and legal residents. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates there are 3.1 million children born here to an undocumented parent.
“Congress must act in September to stop the separation of families, the torture of four million U.S.-citizen children, the raids and deportations,”
Arellano said the day she announced her plans to leave the church’s protective walls after a year in the sanctuary and travel to Washington, D.C., to lobby.
Before departing, she told Hispanic Link News Service that if ICE wants to arrest her, it should do so in Washington “in front of the men and women who make the big decisions and who are ignoring the millions of families who are shouting that we need changes in the immigration laws.”
She also built in a brief speaking engagement in Los Angeles and it was there she was arrested Aug. 19 outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church after meeting with reporters. Within hours she was deported to Mexico.
The National Immigrants Solidarity Network calls her deportation “a shameful move, a clear signal from the government to terrify people who dare to speak up and fight injustice.”
Elvira, now staying in the border city of Tijuana, says she plans to continue her fight from Mexico. She promised her tearful son they will be reunited soon.
Until that happens, Emma Lozano, president of Centro Sin Fronteras, an immigrant advocacy group in Chicago, is caring for Saúl. The boy has traveled the country extensively, pleading for his mother’s future and is likely to continue to do so.
“He has met other children who are also living under difficult situations because of their parents’ deportation, and he wants to be a part of this struggle,” Arellano told Hispanic Link a few days prior to her deportation.
In Cuba, Elián González is an apparently well-adjusted high school student now. He was permitted in June 2000 by the U.S. government to rejoin his father there despite huge public clamor to allow the boy to remain with relatives here.
There’s another difference in the two families’ stories. Cuban Elián is still beloved by millions here. A news photo of him screaming as he was dragged from his Miami family’s house by federal immigration agents sealed that image.
ICE was careful not to make the same public relations blunder with Saúl. They waited until he and his mother were being driven away from the Los Angeles church before surrounding their car and seizing Elvira.
(Salome Eguizabal and Charlie Ericksen report for Hispanic Link News Service, based in Washington, D.C. Reach them at editor@hispaniclink.org.) © 2007.
