Elvira Arellano is a deported immigration lawbreaker. Yet, the writers and editors of hundreds of news stories feel compelled to call her an “activist,” a much more generic term that attempts to deflect her year-long spit-in-the-eye of U.S. immigration laws.
Even more egregious are the comparisons of Arellano to Rosa Parks, the heroic African-American woman who helped break the hold of Jim Crow segregation in the South. Parks broke an unjust and immoral law; Arellano broke a law that is neither. America’s immigration laws arise from the right of every sovereign nation to protect its borders.
Arellano was deported after her arrest in Los Angeles after leaving her yearlong refuge in a Chicago church. There was no question about the illegality of her multi violations; she admitted to them herself. She, in effect, dared authorities to arrest her.
She’s also a child abuser, having unconscionably used her 8-year-old son, Saul, as a political pawn, to fire up the media and elitist sympathy machines. Saul, born in America, is a citizen and could stay here. And here he’ll stay because his mother has abandoned him here to continue to be used as an emotional symbol.
I, for one, am befuddled by why immigration “reformers” have placed so much of their coinage on Arellano. An unscientific Chicago Tribune straw poll among its readers found that 91 percent agreed with her arrest. By a three-to-one margin, they reject the idea that her son’s citizenship should make a difference in her deportation. Perhaps, as the pundits say, they figured it was a way to activate their base. But, in the long run, it has only solidified Americans who are disgusted by the transformation of law-breaking into an iconic act.
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