WHEREAS Elvira Arellano was driving to come to this country by the economic policies the United States has imposed on Mexico causing severe hardship for the people; and
WHEREAS she came here at great risk and was invited to participate in this economy in which she worked and paid taxes and became part of the community and gave birth to her U.S. citizen son Saul; and
WHEREAS she was arrested in her home in front of her son as part of operation TARMAC although she was not a criminal or a terrorist or in any way different from more than twelve million people who work, pay taxes and contribute to the economy and communities of this nation; and
WHEREAS Elvira determined to resist her deportation saying that "I want my son to know that he is a child of God with all the dignity and worth of any child of God and not someone who could be used and thrown away like some piece of garbage;" and
WHEREAS in here three years of resistance, while using every means of legal, legislative and public pressure to sustain the right of Saul to stay in this country with his mother, she has dedicated her life to the struggle of the undocumented; and
WHEREAS among her contributions she joined with Pueblo Sin Fronteras to organize families with U.S. citizen children facing separation by deportation, and with Sin Fronteras won the support for family unity from the city, county and state legislature of Illinois and traveled with the families 7 times to Washington D.C. to testify before congressmen and senators and won the introduction of a private bill in behalf of 35 families, putting family unity at the center of legislative debate; and further
WHEREAS, with Sin Fronteras she began this year�s process of mass mobilization in July, 2005 with a march of 50,000 in Chicago and joined with organizations throughout the nation to call and organize for the historic mobilization in March and May which won majority public opinion for the cause of legalization; and further
WHEREAS through her work in the Coalition for African Asian Arab European Latino Immigrants of Illinois (CAAELII) she has helped to build a broad coalition for legalization in Illinois, never giving up her identity as a Mexican and a Latino; and further
WHEREAS her historic hunger strike led to the July 19th march for the moratorium and the historic one year continuance for the IFCO workers; and
WHEREAS her current order of deportation is retaliatory, selective, and vindictive; and
WHEREAS this vindictive action taken while bills are in the process of deliberation in Congress is a symbol of the strategy of the racist clique that controls the U.S. Congress to block all legislation for the next two years and attempt to force the 12 million undocumented to leave this country by torturing their children, separating their families, doubling and tripling raids, arrests and deportations and imposing a no-match system with sanctions on the employers of this country that will negatively effect millions of workers and hundreds of thousands of companies; and
WHEREAS her case is a national symbol of the struggle for a moratorium on all raids, arrests, deportations, and sanctions until the broken immigration laws are fixed and the call on President Bush, who claims to support legalization while imposing this state of terror on millions of people, to implement this moratorium;
1. THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that this national gathering commit themselves to support her resistance through appropriate local actions across the country to support her resistance through appropriate local actions across the country in the coming weeks, including the solicitation of letters of objection from elected officials, unions, churches and organizations as well as direct actions, understanding that this country never has and never will legislate fairness, equality and justice without the organization of a resistance that makes the cost of injustice too high.
