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Brown in America

Illegal immigrant deported after leaving church

By: Santosh :+: Under: Brown in America, Immigration, Opinion, Politics, Religion
On: ⋅ August 22, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant, who had taken sanctuary in a church for over an year was finally arrested and deported.

Elvira Arellano, before being arrested
img: via MSNBC.com

This story, brings to light so many contradictions in the current U.S. immigration and judicial system.

Elvira Arellano, illegally entered and worked in the country, hence she was in violation of the law. Her son, however, was born in the U.S. and by law, 14th Amendment Section 1, to be more specific, is a citizen. While the mother deserved to be deported, the son does not. How do you reconcile those two facts and yet, not separate a 8 year old from mother?

Yet another interesting dilemma presents itself in the form of the concept of sanctuary in Christian churches.

Quoting from Wikipedia for lack of unbiased sources on this topic:

Sanctuary was also a right to be safe from arrest in the sanctuary of a church or temple, recognized by English law from the fourth to the seventeenth century.

From my admittedly limited knowledge, the way I understand the concept of sanctuary, a criminal (or someone accused of a crime) sought refuge in a place of worship and could not be prosecuted by the law. The intention was noble - if the person was a criminal the church could reform the criminal or if the person was innocent he/she would not be wrongly prosecuted.

However, in modern days the parameters of immigration law make this a sticky concept. Assuming that the illegal immigrant is a “criminal” in violation of the law, if the intent of sanctuary is to reform the “criminal”, a “reformed” illegal immigrant would no longer indulge in activity that is considered criminal and hence would leave the country voluntarily.

The other answer is that the church is protecting the illegal immigrant from wrongful prosecution. Which means the church in question does not consider illegal immigration a crime, which is contradictory to the law of the land.

Then there is the question of the slippery slope. If the state allows sanctuary in churches, would it afford the same treatment to temples, mosques and monasteries?

To quote myself from earlier in this post, the contradictions in the current U.S. immigration and judicial system are mind boggling.

As for my personal inconsequential opinions on immigration, the current system makes little sense and needs to be reformed. Used to be the United States of America was the land of immigrants and anyone (actually any European) who showed up at Ellis Island was granted entry along with family. Somewhere along the line, descendants of these immigrants, decided enough was enough and tried to restrict immigration. Like most well-intentioned government ventures this too was performed without too much forethought or planning and hence, the current mess.

On a personal level, I prefer to stick to the laws of the land, be it the country I was born in or the one in which I choose to live. So I don’t condone illegal immigration. But looking at the history of immigration in the U.S., one cannot help but think that who we call illegal immigrants these days, are really not. Besides, illegal immigration is largely a victimless crime, meaning it has no direct impact on others. When Elvira Arellano lived in the U.S. and worked as a plane cleaner at O’Hare Internation airport, it had no direct impact on me or, if I may extrapolate, any of our readers for that matter. The reason she is considered a fringe of American society is because of the current laws, which are a modified version of the original laws anyway.

My take on illegal immigration is a more common sense and practical approach - legalize it. Anyone who wants to make a living within the parameters of the law is welcome. Reduce or eliminate social welfare schemes to weed out deadbeat immigrants, and, if I may add, U.S. citizens. Make them work the entire year (except weekends) with around 5 national holidays, sell them 40 cent coffees for $4, sell them $5 canvas shoes with a swoosh for $50 and tax the hell out of them. Isn’t that the American way of life anyway?

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