To many people, the church is a place of sanctuary and refuge, a place where one can go to escape all of the problems of the world. Churches in Hispanic communities where undocumented immigrants tend to live often act as a point of reference, a center where many of the basic human services are provided.
So naturally when faced with deportation last year, Elvira Arellano did something that would prevent her from being deported; she took refuge in a church. But in the case of Elvira Arellano, it seems that the church could only protect her from her troubles for so long. Her attempts to avoid the U.S. immigration agency, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, proved to be a temporary fix to her predicament. Faced with the alternatives, she must have figured it to be her best option.
But what was evident the second she stepped inside that church was that the outcome of her ordeal as an undocumented immigrant in the United States was set in stone. Of course the United States immigration agency, despite threats of doing so, would not desecrate the sanctity of a place of worship by staging a mid-day raid with I.C.E agents armed to the teeth kicking down doors. I.C.E, instead, chose to sit and wait for the moment she would leave the church to arrest her.
A year after she first stepped into the church, she left to speak at a rally in Los Angeles and was arrested and deported back to Mexico. What Elvira Arellano did was not just her illegal entry into the United States, nor was it her fugitive status once inside; millions of undocumented immigrants live within our borders, many of them will never see the type of attention she received from the government.
What made Arellano’s case special was her public display of defiance and attempts to garner international attention to her plight. The act of hiding behind the church-that sacred, untouchable institution-must have annoyed government officials.
And while I.C.E decided not to turn an already touchy subject into an all out scandal by raiding a church, there was no way they would let Arellano off the hook. In the end, she had to be made an example of and there was nothing the church could do to protect her from the state.