Illegal Immigrant Trying to Claim Sanctuary in a Church

Here we go with another illegal alien claiming rights that simply aren't there:

Immigration activists around the country are taking up the cause of a single mother who invoked the ancient principle of sanctuary and took refuge in a Chicago church rather than submit to deportation to Mexico.

Elvira Arellano, 31, was holed up for a second day Wednesday at Aldalberto United Methodist Church with the support of the congregation's pastor. With her was her 7-year-old son, Saul, an American citizen.

Federal officials said there is no right to sanctuary in a church under U.S. law and nothing to prevent them from arresting her. But they would not say exactly what they planned to do, or when.

The protest raised the spectacle of agents barging into a church and dragging her out.

"She is the face of the movement," said Emma Lozano, executive director of the Chicago immigration-rights group Centro Sin Fronteras, who was at the church with Arellano.

She may be the face of the movement, but she's also a criminal:

Arellano illegally crossed into the United States in 1997 and was deported shortly afterward. She returned within days, living for three years in Oregon before moving to Chicago in 2000. Arrested two years later at O'Hare Airport, where she was working as a cleaning woman, she was convicted of working under a false Social Security number and ordered to appear at the immigration office in Chicago.

I know this is going to sound heartless and cruel (but, of course, you wouldn't expect anything less from me) but the immigration officials need to go in that church and get that lady out of there...now. The longer they wait the worse the PR situation is going to be, and the more valid the lady's claim of sanctuary becomes.

I feel sorry for her family situation, but if we're going to be able to continue to be a sovereign country, we've got to be able to enforce our immigration laws.