Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant who had been given “sanctuary” at the Adalberto United Methodist Church in the Humboldt Park section of Chicago for a year slipped out the back door and headed to Los Angeles to participate in an immigration march.  At the last minute, though, she bagged the march and holed up in Our Lady Queen of Angels Church (AKA Iglesia Nuestra Seńora Reina de los Angeles and La Placita Church) – where she held several press conferences attended by reporters who almost universally refer to her as an “immigrant activist.”

Arellano must have been disappointed that fewer than 500 demonstrators showed up to witness her martyrdom and no doubt decided to wait for a more high-profile event from which to be dragged off in manacles by jackbooted immigration agents. She’ll likely go back to Plan A, which is to travel to Washington, D.C. to pray and fast at the National Mall on Sept. 12 in hopes of pressuring Congress to enact immigration reform that will allow her to trade “sanctuary” for amnesty.

Arellano illegally entered WA in 1997 and was deported to Mexico soon after, only to sneak across the border again. She moved to IL in 2000, and began working at O‘Hare International Airport cleaning planes (using a fake Social Security number to get the job, of course).

Radio talk show host Mike Gallagher gives us his take on the Rev. Walter Coleman, the misguided – and limelight-seeking – pastor who sheltered her for a year:

[I]nterviewing this guy on the radio is an exercise in futility. I’d ask him a question about when his little tenant plans to depart her holy digs and he’d ramble on about how illegals only work the jobs that Americans refuse to work, how hard illegals work, blah, blah, blah.

In other words, Elvira was the perfect vehicle for a Methodist minister who was just aching to make his mark in the pro-illegal movement. …

She’s enjoyed a year of “sanctuary” because she found some misguided church pastor who decided to claim his fifteen minutes of fame by harboring a fugitive.

Last year, Gail Montenegro, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson in Chicago, told The Washington Post that, “ICE has the authority to arrest anyone in violation of immigration law anywhere in the U.S” – even a church.

The Apostle Paul advised, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from G-d, and those that exist have been instituted by G-d. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what G-d has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” [Romans 13:1 and 13:2]

Clearly, under both Caesar’s law and G-d’s law (second item), Rev. Coleman had no justification to aid and abet Arellano’s lawbreaking, and federal immigration officers were free to enter the church and arrest her at will.

So why didn’t they? Because Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff lacks the will.

According to the Chicago Tribune, ” with worldwide publicity surrounding her case, officials have avoided the symbolism of raiding a church, referring anyone who asks about their intentions to a prepared statement that calls Arellano a fugitive and explains that all arrests are prioritized.”

What does Chertoff mean by “prioritized?” This is what he told attendees at the at the Fourth Annual Border Security Conference last week at the University of Texas (El Paso):”We’re faced with a system where our customs and immigration officers are saddled with the need to pursue people who are coming here to work, which distracts them from pursuing those who are coming to do harm.”

Since we do not know who is coming into or leaving our country, and do not track – and therefore do not know - where they go once they’re inside our borders, how can we assume that they are all here “to work.” How do we know whether a particular illegal alien isn’t here to further the reach of criminal enterprises, such as MS-13 or Mexican drug cartels – which have ties to Al-Qaeda?

The truth is, we have no idea who is “coming do harm” and cannot pursue them until after they have “done harm.” 

Chicago Tribune metro columnist Eric Zorn argues that the government’s inaction validated “an idea that’s unconstitutional and potentially dangerous - that she was somehow safe from the law inside the four walls of a church.” He adds that the government “had their chance [to arrest her]. For whatever reason, they passed. Game over. She won. Move on.”

But that’s not how Gallagher sees it:

She’s enjoyed a year of “sanctuary” because she found some misguided church pastor who decided to claim his fifteen minutes of fame by harboring a fugitive. When she leaves the church, the sanctuary is gone. Over. Done. Off she should go to lock-up.

But that’s probably not the way this will play out, is it? Heck, in a perfect world, the pastor would be taken off to jail with her. If you or I gave aid and comfort to a fugitive from justice, the police wouldn’t think twice about arresting us.

Like the majority of Zorn’s readers, The Stiletto is in Gallagher’s camp: Better late than never. No federal, state or local statute enshrines the concept of “sanctuary” in a house of worship.

Arellano’s new “sanctuary” in LA is one of more than a dozen churches nationwide that have sheltered illegal immigrants who have been ordered to leave our country, reports the Chicago Tribune. Any illegal alien who pulls this stunt, and the cleric extending bogus “sanctuary” to him or her, ought to be arrested. And since flouting our laws and sheltering illegal aliens who have been ordered deported is a blatantly political act, these churches should lose their tax-exempt status.

This is the real world, not a Victor Hugo novel.

Editorial Note: Elvira Arellano was arrested Sunday evening, Eastern time. ICE released this statement: “Arellano, who was taken into custody without incident, is being processed for removal to Mexico based upon a deportation order originally issued by a federal immigration judge in 1997. Arresting and removing criminal aliens is one of ICE’s top enforcement priorities and the agency will continue to pursue these cases vigorously.” She has since been deported to Tijuana. Mexico.

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