Oh my goodness, just let her stay here!

When I read stories like this, I never understand how anyone wouldn't want to allow this woman to stay in the U.S. And then I think about how a big part of me wants to move back to the U.S./Mexico border so that I can witness/document the plight of immigrants. It is so important...


MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- He's a serious 7-year-old on a mission to save his mom.

Four-foot-tall second-grader Saul Arellano, a U.S. citizen, was to stand before 500 members of the lower house of the Mexican Congress on Tuesday to plead for their help in lobbying Washington to stop the deportation of his migrant mother, who has taken refuge in a Chicago church.

His fight is being closely watched on both sides of the border: The result could set a precedent for more than 3 million children, like him, who are Americans born to at least one parent who is in the U.S. illegally.

While his mother, Elvira Arellano, stays inside the Adalberto United Methodist Church on Chicago's West Side, Saul has joined a months-long campaign on her behalf, speaking out from Los Angeles to Washington, where he handed a White House guard his letter to President Bush.

"I want my mom to stay with me in the U.S.," he told The Associated Press on Monday in between informal meetings with Mexican lawmakers.

Since August 15 -- the day she was scheduled to surrender to U.S. authorities for deportation -- mother and son have lived at the church. U.S. federal officials have said there is no right to sanctuary in a church under U.S. law, and nothing to prevent them from arresting her.

But so far, they have not moved to detain Elvira Arellano, who has won the support from political figures across the United States, including Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

Arellano, 31, said she sent her son to her homeland because she believes the Mexican government has the ability to help her.

"If the Mexican government can negotiate a free-trade agreement, they can negotiate a good accord to keep families from being split up," she said.

But immigration reform has proved to be a much tougher issue to resolve than trade. President Vicente Fox, who leaves office December 1, has struggled throughout his six-year term to gain Washington's support for a migration accord that would allow for thousands of Mexicans to work legally in the U.S. And while Bush personally supports a temporary guest-worker program, Republicans in Congress limited action to strengthening the border fence.

Arellano said she should not have to choose between leaving her son behind in the U.S. or bringing him to Mexico, away from his school, friends and familiar environment.

Conservative columnists and anti-illegal immigration activists say she put herself and her son in this difficult spot by repeatedly breaking the law.

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.

She was arrested two years later at O'Hare International Airport, where she worked as a cleaning woman. Convicted of working under a false Social Security number, she served three years probation before being ordered to appear at the immigration office in Chicago.