Illegal who sought sanctuary at Chicago church files civil rights lawsuit

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Francisca Lino has until Thanksgiving Day to turn herself into Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials or be considered a fugitive.

Lino, 50, a mother of six, resisted a court order to leave the country in August and instead took sanctuary at Adalberto United Methodist Church — the same parish on Chicago’s West Side that protected immigration activist Elvira Arellano.


She had 90 days to surrender. In a final effort to avoid deportation, Lino’s attorneys filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Friday alleging that the U.S. government violated her Fifth Amendment rights and expeditiously deported her in 1999 without due process.

That arrest made Lino ineligible for legal immigration status, causing her to suffer “the loss of liberty, stress, anxiety and physical displacement,” according to the lawsuit.

There's more:

Lino had illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 1999 but was caught, fingerprinted and released after a few hours. At the time, low-level immigration officers could expeditiously deport anyone who crossed the border, according to her attorneys.

After a few days, she made a second attempt and successfully crossed the border. She eventually settled in Bolingbrook with her husband, Diego Lino, a U.S. citizen. The couple had four children, though each had a child from a previous relationship.

Once they were married, Lino applied for a green card in 2005. Immigration officials accepted their money, brought the couple in for an interview and arrested Lino.

No word yet on whether Lino's children will get 800 on the English part of the new dumbed down SAT's....