Deported immigration activist is toast of Tijuana

Carolyn Hileman* | August 24, 2007

By Richard Marosi August 22, 2007TIJUANA — This city of broken immigrant dreams has rarely seen the likes of Elvira Arellano, the tough-talking deportee from Chicago. And rarely has Tijuana welcomed a deported immigrant the way it has embraced Arellano this week. Since Arellano was arrested in Los Angeles and returned to Mexico she’s engaged in a whirlwind of public appearances where she’s been heralded as a hero for defying U.S. authorities by taking sanctuary in a church. In the United States, her yearlong battle made her a polarizing figure alternately viewed as an icon of immigrant rights or a selfish lawbreaker. But in Mexico, Arellano’s experience is portrayed as a story of principled resistance, of a woman who fought before becoming one of the thousands of illegal immigrants who file sadly back into this border metropolis every year.

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