Children of the Undocumented

Story by Silvana Tabares

This reporter produced a set of related audio pieces listen here.

Saul Arellano is an 8-year-old boy living in Humboldt Park. He is in the second-grade and attends an elementary school in Pilsen. He interacts with his friends, plays Internet games on a computer, and sometimes refuses to listen when his mother asks him to get ready for bed.

Saul may seem like your typical child, but he is not. He’s one of an estimated 3 million U.S. citizen children with undocumented immigrant parents.

Saul lives with his mother, Elvira Arellano, an undocumented immigrant who has sought sanctuary at Adalberto United Methodist Church. She has lived there since August 2006 when she defied order of deportation from immigration officials.

“I believe no mother would abandon their child just because they say they are going to deport you. I could go but what is going to happen? I can’t offer my son the opportunities that are in the U.S.,” said Arellano. “I want a life of respect and a life where my son have a better life and have better opportunities, such as a good education.”

She has become a symbol in the national debate over immigration as Congress considers whether to approve legislation to legalize or create a guest worker program for the more than 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

“The struggle of Elvira is the struggle of millions of immigrant women in providing a better life for their children. That has been the American dream. You come here, you work hard and you have the chance to provide a better life for your children,” said Dale Asis, executive director of the Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European and Latino Immigrants of Illinois. Asis said the immigration laws should be overhauled.

“In the sense of the laws that we have now, Elvira has transgressed the law and is a criminal. But that doesn’t mean that these laws are fair,” Asis said.

Cook County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado has proposed making the county an official sanctuary for undocumented immigrants, a symbolic move to show his support of immigrant rights.

“Elvira did what any mother would have done with any sense of common sense and love for her child,” Maldonado said.

But to immigration officials, Arellano is a fugitive. They are aware she is in the church. But in more than eight months she has lived there, officials have not made any attempts to remove or deport her.

“ICE is tracking down approximately 600,000 immigrant fugitives in the United States, and we are focusing primarily on those with criminal records,” said Gail Montenegro, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Chicago.

Arellano and her supporters at the church and the community organization, Centro Sin Fronteras, have rallied to her side. Lawyers also have filed legal challenges on Saul’s behalf.

“My son has sued legally in federal court,” Arellano said. “Along with his lawyers, they are doing everything in order for his constitutional rights not be violated.”

They have held press conferences, and Saul has traveled to Miami, where he was a guest on the Spanish-language talk show, Cristina, to Washington, D.C., where he tried to get the attention of President Bush, and to Mexico to plead his mother’s case to that country’s Congress. But away from the press conferences and cameras, their routine is like any typical mother and child.

Each evening Arellano goes over Saul’s reading homework and makes certain Saul studies in English.

“Come and sit here,” Arellano told her son. “I need to check your paper and that you’ve done your reading material. What are you going to read?”

“The Old Golly Wonka,” Saul said. As Saul started to read, their black and feisty Chihuahua, Daisy, begins to bark.

“Daisy be quiet,” Arellano says.

“Low in the…” Saul stumbles over a word in English.

“Wood pile,” Arellano says, helping Saul sound out the word.

“Wood pile,” together they pronounce the words.

“Between the road…” Saul slowly continues to read the book under his mother’s watchful eye.

Later, Saul speaks about his mother’s case.

“I want to keep my mom here with me,” Saul says. “I told them to tell President Bush to stop the deportation of my mom and other families can stay here in the United States.”

Mexican lawmakers have passed a resolution advising the U.S. government to suspend the deportation of Arellano and other parents of children who are U.S. citizens.

Arellano, who is now on a hunger strike, said her last hope is to stay inside this church. She said she will continue fighting for her son and for a fair legalization for all undocumented families.

“I don’t care if this is a powerful government. I’m not going to allow them to treat us as criminals. It is unfair,” she said. “I’m not a criminal. I’m a mother that is fighting to give my son a better life and a better future.”

Hear the audio interviews by Silvana Tabares-Flores.