Elvira Arellano, a Mexican immigrant rights advocate who made headlines when she took refuge in a Chicago church in 2006, has asked refuge in the United States on humanitarian grounds.

Arellano was deported to Mexico in 2007 after a lengthy sanctuary in the United Methodist Church of Adaberto.

UIP editor and contributor Maura Toro-Morn writes:

Arellano’s life story must be viewed in the larger context of the history of Mexican labor migration to the United States and the changing labor needs of the U.S. economy.  Gomberg-Muñoz  (2010, 27) writes that “there is a common misconception that labor migration from Mexico to the United States is fueled by a lack of economic development in Mexico.”

Toro-Morn profiles Arellano’s story in the collection Immigrant Women Workers in the Neoliberal Age.

Hear Maura Toro-Morn discuss the book and the civil rights of immigrant workers in this radio interview: WJBC AM-FM, Beth Whisman interview.