Eight-year-old activist Saulito Arrelleno visits SA

Eight-year-old Saulito Arrellano at the Cesar Chavez March for Justice, March 31st.

For eight months, Elvira Arellano has defied a deportation order and lives in a Chicago church with her eight-year-old son, Saulito. While she is stuck in the church for fear of being deported, her US-born son is travelling across the country and to San Antonio recently to lobby to keep his mother in the country.

Arrellano claims she is not a criminal but a single mother.

Her eight-year old son Saulito is one of at least 3.1 million children who are US citizens but could lose one or more undocumented parents at any moment to an immigration raid, so says a 2006 Pew Hispanic Center report.

Arrellano was arrested in a post-September 11, 2001 "terrorist" sweep and ordered deported. In August she held a news conference announcing her defiance.

Saulito was a special guest in San Antonio and marched in the Cesar Chavez March for Justice, March 31st. He was quoted as saying, "Si Se Puede."