As part of a series of post-9/11 country-wide airport raids in search of terrorists, Elvira Arellano, a Mexican woman working as a janitor at O'Hare International Airport, was arrested and convicted of Social Security fraud. On the date she was ordered to appear before immigration authorities, she took refuge at a Methodist church where she remained for 12 months, fighting to remain in the United States. She ultimately was deported to Mexico in 2007 and separated from her American-born son. 

ELVIRA narrates the drama of the undocumented mother who became an international symbol of the struggle of the rights of undocumented workers.