There was clearly no merit to this suit -- the law is clear that illegal immigrant parents of American citizens have no right to stay in this country simply because they managed to breed while breaking this country's laws. And there is no legitimate counstitutional claim here, either.

A federal judge struck a blow Friday to the hopes of an immigration activist who has taken refuge in a Chicago church to avoid deportation, dismissing her lawsuit against the government.

Elvira Arellano, 31, a Mexican national, had hoped that U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve would rule that deporting her would violate the constitutional rights of her 7-year-old son, Saul, an American citizen.

But St. Eve ruled that no one's rights would be violated by deporting Arellano back to Mexico. She did say, however, the child would suffer a hardship.

"The question before the court is whether that hardship is of constitutional magnitude -- under any construction of the alleged facts, it is not," St. Eve said in her order.

St. Eve concluded that the pending removal order does not prevent Saul from exercising his rights of citizenship.

"Saul will not suffer any injury to his constitutional right to remain in the United States," she said.

Indeed, I'm struck by this observation that the Constitution is not violated just because all options available to a person have negative aspects to them.

"In fact, the injury Saul alleges is not the same as the injury his mother will suffer. Her injury is compelled removal; his is the unenviable fork in the road [i.e., whether to uproot or to live apart from his mother] that arises as a result of his mother's compelled removal," the judge said.

Yes, the boy can stay in the United States -- whether under the guardianship of someone designated by his mother or as a ward of the state. Or Saul's mother may elect to take her son back to Mexico, which in no way impairs his citizenship rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The choice is entirely in the hands of Elvira Arellano.

But then again, this all comes down to choices made by the mother.

Arellano was supposed to surrender for deportation to Mexico on Aug. 15.

Instead, she and her son moved into a cramped room in the storefront church sandwiched between a bank and a beauty parlor in Chicago's heavily Puerto Rican Humboldt Park neighborhood.

She has frequently told reporters visiting the church she wants to stay in the United States to provide a better life for herself and her son.

"I'm not going to leave. This is a place where God has put me, this is God's will and I'm going to stay here," Arellano has said.

Arellano first was deported from the United States shortly after illegally crossing the border in 1997, according to immigration enforcement. She says she returned within days, went on to live in Oregon for three years and moved to Chicago in 2000.

She was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare International Airport, where she was employed as a cleaning woman, and subsequently convicted of working under a false Social Security number.

So you see, this woman has broken American law multiple times, twice sneaking into this country like a thief in the night, working illegally in this country and fraudulently using false documentation. Violating her deportation order and hiding out in a church in an attempt to avoid the workings of American law (gee -- where are the church-state separationists on this one?) Oh, yeah -- and choosing to have a child.

The time has come for a SWAT team to enter the church to arrest Elvira Arellano.

Cuff her.

Stuff her.

Send her back.

Oh, yes -- and indict Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church for harboring a fugitive.

And by the way -- this story presents the best available argument for amending the Constituion to do away with birthright citizenship for the children of border-jumping immigration criminals.

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