Adios, Elvira Arellano

I know this story happened yesterday, but I thought I'd throw my belated two cents in any way. Elvira Arellano who had defied a federal deportation order for years, was finally deported yesterday. Story from Reuters.

A Mexican whose fight to stay in the United States became a cause celebre for pro-immigration activists was deported without her young son, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said on Monday.

Elvira Arellano, 32, an illegal immigrant who had defied deportation orders and claimed sanctuary in a Chicago church for a year, left the church to publicize immigration reform efforts in Los Angeles, where she was arrested.

I'm glad this political stunt is finally over and that the federal government finally decided to enforce its laws. Arellano was using her eight-year-old son (a US citizen) as a political pawn to push her amnesty agenda. For someone who claimed to care so much about her son, when she was deported to Mexico she left him in the United States.

Yes, I do feel sorry for her son because he was used as a cheap political prop. But I do not feel sorry at all for Elvira Arellano who put herself in this situation by the choices she made. She made the choice to come to this country illegally. After her first deportation, she again made another choice to come to this country illegally. That was her decision, and it's her responsibility to live with the consequences of her actions. She has no one to blame but herself.

On Bill O'Reilly last night, Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers unbelievably claimed that everyone has a human right to come to this country. That simply insane. There are hundreds of millions of people who live in abject poverty who would love to come to this country so that they can live a better life. That is simply logistically impossible, and would sink this country. Immigration to the United States is a privilege, not a right. I fully agree that we shouldn't hold this privilege miserly, but I don't think we should give that privilege to everyone in the world.