It’s been exactly one year since Elvira Arellano sought sanctuary in a Humboldt Park church to protest her deportation.

Now she’s heading to Washington D.C.

Arellano and her supporters have announced plans to risk her arrest by traveling to the nation’s capitol on September 12.

The goal is to take their fight for immigration reform directly to Capitol Hill when Congress returns from summer break.

It will be the first time Arellano has left the Adalberto United Methodist Church in more than a year.

We paid a visit there earlier this week to talk with her about the past 12 months, and to find out what’s next for her and her supporters.

Adalberto United Methodist is a tiny storefront church along a busy stretch of Division Street.

The pastor is the Reverend Walter Coleman.

Now with the one-year anniversary here, even more journalists—including us—are clamoring to speak with Arellano.

Univision arrives while we’re speaking with her – just one of the half dozen interviews she’s doing in one day.

And her 8-year-old son Saul has also stepped into the limelight.

He’s a U.S. Citizen and has been leading parades and speaking out on his mother’s behalf.

He even traveled to Washington with an immigrant rights group to deliver a letter to the White House.

Arellano has drawn criticism for turning her son into a spokesman and for flouting U.S. immigration laws by avoiding deportation.

But she’s also become a source of encouragement for the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

She says her leadership role dates back to 2002, when she was arrested for working at O’Hare Airport as a cleaning woman with a falsified social security number.