Illegal immigrant child abuse

Today's article headlined “Boy leads protest over deported mother” is another brass-balled example of biased reporting by the Associated Press. Yahoo's carrying it and the Drudge Report links it using the headline provided by the AP. Let's desconstruct this...

An 8-year old boy... led a chanting crowd of about 150 pro-immigration activists through the halls of Congress on Wednesday.

The boy didn't lead anything. The conscience-free protestors shamelessly shoved a banner into his hands and herded him along in front of them, an unwilling poster child for their cause. Note that this isn't about promoting LEGAL immigration, it's about letting illegal immigration proceed unabated.

Asked by a demonstrator whether he wanted to speak, he shook his head no... looking distracted, (he) then joined other children at the front of an unruly procession through the halls and basements of two House office buildings.

He was leading this protest the same way a bug splattered on a windshield leads a car speeding down an interstate highway.

In Tijuana, Mexico, across the border from San Diego, (his mother) Elvira Arellano spoke about her son to several dozen demonstrators. “He is a boy who has been suffering because the U.S. Government told his mother she couldn't stay in their country anymore because she was undocumented,” she said.

No, he's suffering because mommy (intone that blessed word with hand on heart and eyes raised to heaven), deported once before his birth as an illegal immigrant, returned for a repeat engagement, got pregnant but not married, and stayed undocumented for several years before getting caught using a false social security number to illegally hold a job. She was ordered to report for deportation but instead stayed for another year in the sanctuary provided by a well-meaning church group near Chicago. She was finally arrested and deported only after thumbing her nose at La Migra by traveling to Los Angeles to lead immigration protests.

So, si se puede. Yes, you can. You can lie. You can use your kid as media bait. You can't, however, play the Mommy Card in this round. That card's been trumped by the truth. Leave that poor kid out of your protests.

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Immigrate Legally

A few weeks ago the Chicago Tribune carried the story of Elvira Arellano, a criminal fugitive who was deported once and returned for a repeat engagement. She was caught again. Rather than report for deportation, she sought sanctuary in a Humboldt Park church and reimagined herself as an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents . There she was left alone for months until she traveled to Los Angeles to speak at an immigration rally and was arrested afterwards. She had this to say:

''They were in a hurry to deport me because they saw that I was threatening to mobilize and organize the people to fight for legalization,'' Arellano said in Spanish outside the Tijuana apartment building where she was staying. ''I have a fighting spirit and I'm going to continue fighting.''

Something was lost in translation unless "fighting" means "sitting on my butt in a church for a year and doing nothing much" in Spanish. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasn't threatened by her efforts. They weren't in much of a hurry, either. They deported her because after months of very vocal attention whoring she left the sanctuary provided by the goodhearted but misguided congregation of the Adalberto United Methodist Church. ICE just avoided the hysterical press that would have followed a raid on a midwestern church.

The saddest note in her story is that she had to choose either to leave her US-born son in the land of his birthright or take him to Mexico with her. Her decision to leave him with his godmother in Chicago is somehow seen as a great tragedy rather than simple common sense and the easily foreseen direct result of Elvira's own choices.

The September print edition of The Progressive magazine tells of two more indocumentados in similar straits. One of them, a young woman with infant in tow, has taken refuge in yet another church acting as part of what's called the New Sanctuary Movement. Supporters of this movement apparently see no difference between Central American political refugees of the 80's and opportunist scofflaws of the 00's. Hidden behind the pain and disrupted lives of all three families are stories with this simple pattern:

I'm not a political refugee fleeing for my life from an oppressive regime. I came to the US to work at a better paying job. I forged documents (birth certificate, social security number) to legitimize myself. I lived under the radar for years, not paying taxes, and got away with it because immigration laws are as weakly enforced as I had hoped. I married a naturalized citizen and we have a US- born child. During all my years in the States I did not avail myself of existing means to work toward citizenship. Now the law has caught up with me and I will be separated from my family and deported. I've been a model citizen with the exception of my illegal status. Isn't this sad? Won't you let me slide?

No. Send us the tired, the poor, the homeless, the tempest-tossed. Many Americans still like those sentiments even though they're not and never were policy. We will insist on citizenship, however. This worked for the Irish, the Italian, the German, the Pole, the Jew, the Muslim, and the Hindu, for refugees and immigrants from too many lands to mention, and we think it should work for you too. Don't drag little Saulito or Pablito out as Poster Child for the Fabricated Cause when rules you knew about and dodged are finally enforced after years of grace.

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